


What Dreams May Come

by Amalspach



Category: Elementary (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-05-26 02:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14990786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amalspach/pseuds/Amalspach
Summary: Sherlock Holmes doesn't dream, he reminiscences. And what he recounts is the luck of the draw. Eventual Joanlock, four parts. Only canon up to the third season.





	1. The Ascension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Nope, don't own Elementary. I just felt the need to stick in my own two cents for some reason. Also, this is only sticking to canon until about halfway through season three, as that is as far as I've managed to see so far. 
> 
> I really just liked the random idea I came up with and tried to highlight major events in seasons one and two, so essentially this chapter is just a redone rundown. Still, I'm hoping it's interesting enough to convince you to stay. I kinda like how it turned out.

Sherlock Holmes is a man of numerology, calculation, intrigue and intelligence. He is a pleasant, chaotic contradiction of terms; orderly yet brutally and rather unfortunately oblivious in matters of personal space, completely cynical yet empathetic to the common man, ingenious yet enclosed in his own violation of the world's rules. He's spent the entirety of his life trying to escape the ordinary at all costs, to finally find a place or stage or time in which he is happy, possibly in love, or at the very least, content.

As in all aspects of his existence, ever-changing though they may be, his unconscious state is no less strange.

You see, he doesn't dream.

Peculiar, of course, but dreams are the manifestations of loose thoughts flitting through the idle brain, trying to be made sense of, but he's not used to having ends that are not neatly tied off, thoughts left incomplete or unpondered. He's Sherlock Holmes, and hasn't he always done what he wanted to? Isn't that what the tattoos and the investigations and the fleeting fascinations were all about? Filling the hours?

It doesn't matter. Dreams are foreign, and he doesn't have them. Not even once, not even as a child.

Instead, he experiences memories on repeat, running through his mind like film reels left in a movie theater. He relives select moments again and again and again until they fade to static and he reawakens. Sometimes the return is disappointing, or sometimes it is a welcome reprieve. In any event, it is one of the few areas of his life he has absolutely no control over.

Tonight was no different.

Tonight was her and himself, their first meeting. He holds out his arm, prepared to distinguish art forgeries from authentic masterpieces, and she takes it, eyes shining with mischief. Her hair falls over her shoulders, her hands slotting around his jacket like puzzle pieces.

He hates himself, most nights, for dreaming about Irene. If he could relive the moment for real - the static air, the pleasant lighting, the witty banter - he would walk out immediately and never come back. Falling in love with someone was stupid - she could still be alive if it weren't for him.

Falling in love. Irene was the only one who  _really_  took a fall, wasn't she?

When he wakes up, startlingly alert and upright, he remembers that Watson is also within the Brownstone.

Sherlock shouldn't find that comforting, the thought of another person, even if it is his sober companion, being only a few steps away.

That thought, odd as it is, is almost more disturbing that seeing Irene again. At least the dead tend to stay dead, even if all they leave behind are the memories.

* * *

Watson is . . . surprisingly tolerable. She's fairly clever, quick on her feet, and has a decent eye for detail. She doesn't seem to hold him down during investigations and even has the occasional spurt of usefulness.

He's not going to relapse. Really, he isn't. He doesn't  _need_  a sober companion.

But perhaps an acquaintance wouldn't be so bad. Or, maybe with the right mentor, a student. Joan Watson has . . . well, potential may sound slightly juvenile, as she's already a grown adult capable of her own choices, but she is different.

He dreams about the in-between moments often, now. The times she knits her brow when looking at crime scenes, as if she is actually interested in what he does, or whenever Joan insists on accompanying him to meetings with the authorities, as though she wants to be informed.

It's nice, almost, being believed in. Even if it's coming from Joan Watson.

* * *

He cannot quite recall when they became friends, when he started to trust her.

He's combed his subconscious a million different ways - for once, there is no logical, clean-cut answer. He's Sherlock Holmes, and he has baggage that stretches to the moon, and she's Joan, who's stuck here with him yet somehow not running for the door.

He's wondered, occasionally, why people have things such as 'best friends'. They don't last very long, and most cannot fathom how hard it is to stick around once things get hard. When they experience a death, or a trauma, or a disability, or an unfortunate drinking problem, others tend to leave. This is just the nature of the beast, and Sherlock has never expected anything different.

Joan, though. She sees his job and knows about his addiction and understands his mind, and she's not going anywhere.

Sherlock can't remember why they are friends, but she is the best of his, somehow. His only real friend, most days.

* * *

There is little in life that is more terrifying than Joan Watson leaving the Brownstone for something as insipid as  _dating_.

She 'needs her own space', fine.

She 'wants to get out of the house for a little bit', okay.

But dating?

That very notion is somehow unacceptable. She's  _his_  best friend. She's  _his_  protegee and partner.

She's not someone else's date.

Sherlock needs her available at all times, and that means he needs her here, where she is safe and at home and not  _dating_. It's a waste of time, anyhow - coffee, dinner, drinks, and going home. Not so imploring, not so fascinating, and certainly not as whirlwind spurring and intriguing as the modern media imagines it is.

He dated, once. And now he's alone, as is to be expected, and Irene with stars made of freckles and gold in her irises is gone with the wind. People aren't supposed to enter relationships with eachother - they are destined to end badly. Nothing lasts forever.

Sherlock would like whatever he has with Joan, though, to last. She . . . grounds him, when he takes off from the ground. It's something nobody, not even Irene, had been able to do, and nobody seems to  _get_  that. No one they know understands what she does for him, what strange sort of friendship they have cultivated. Joan makes him strive to be better, and this is what has made him greater - before now, nobody had ever cared what he did, and now he was making decisions for two. It forced him to be accountable for her, to accept responsibility to someone else for the first time.

She's good for him.

A small, selfish part of himself doesn't want her to be good for anyone else. She helps him remain sane, and if he ever lost Joan because of dating . . . Well. It would be unthinkable.

When he finally collapses, he recounts the first day he met Joan, all down to the last detail; there is the squeak of soles on the worn wooden floorboards, the lingering sunlight streaming inwards, the brightness of the starched walls, and the glare of screens from the background, and in the center of all of the old is a single outlier of the new. She has no idea that she is about to become the voice in his head, and that she is going to be embarking on a trip into criminal justice in a mere number of hours. Joan is, so to speak, fresh off the boat.

He watches, introduces himself rudely, and wonders if, given the chance, he would change anything about that memory considering how they have turned out today.

Probably not. Joan should have known about the worst of him from the very beginning, and that entails his sharp tongue.

Sherlock relives a thousand lifetimes, stuck in a loop, before awaking slumped over in a chair. Around his shoulders is a blanket, and over in the kitchen the unmistakable sound of eggs sizzling can be observed.

He smiles, inexplicably, because Joan is here at the Brownstone and not on a date.

* * *

There is something so irrevocably  _wrong_  about Joan and Mycroft as a couple.

First of all, Sherlock must note, he's  _Mycroft_. In his mind, that name stirs up a variety of definitions: lazy, petulant, annoying, boring, burdensome, and several more inventive, colorful phrases. Dependable, honest, patient, kind - those things are not anywhere near the image he has managed to cultivate for his older brother. And yet, Mycroft and Joan are out having a meal together.

You know, alone.

Like a date.

He's always detested her dating habits, naturally, but Joan+Mycroft+romance is a level above foul. It is revolting, and utterly unacceptable. Mycroft is Mycroft, and he was not what Joan should need or want or think about shagging. Joan wasn't lazy or petulant or boring - in fact, she was the exact opposite.

Joan Watson was exceptionally devoted to everything she did. She persevered despite all manners of rigor and tribulations, enduring even the immense task of coexisting with Sherlock Holmes, recovering addict. She was clever, and though it wasn't his particular brand of smart, she possessed a stroke of genius all her own and a decent talent for observation. She had good instincts and a way with the vast majority of people. She was endlessly driven, rather charming, and decidedly  _not_  dull.

She was also pretty, what most would call 'beautiful', but that was of little consequence, of course.

Joan was simply . . . wonderful, maybe. Bright, as strange as it sounds. She provided some semblance of meaning, of balance, to his life.

Now Mycroft, on the other hand. He was not luminescent like Joan, and he was a right prat used to keeping to himself. He couldn't possibly deserve her.

"He's your brother," she says. "You should spend some time with him," she reminds him constantly.

Sherlock doesn't need friends. He already has Joan, after all, and Bell and Gregson, in a sense.

What he needs is for Mycroft and his meddling self to get away from him and Joan.  _They_  were partners, and there was no place in their delicate relationship for a troublesome sibling.

Still, they were out having dinner. Though he had no desire to go, Sherlock finds himself wishing he had. Then, at least, they would have had a chaperone, and there would be no reason for this prolonged discomfort.

When she arrives back, she mentions something along the lines of 'it was good, Mycroft's great at cooking' and 'he wants to get to know you again' and 'you should have come, we talked about you a lot'. He knows he can't hope to control her outside friendships, but all he's hearing is  _Mycroft and I_ , swimming through his head.

It's not his place to decide who she talks to. He's nobody but her colleague.

Still, the next several nights after, he dreams of Joan, how she smiles at the prospect of the Holmes brothers bonding again. About how 'nice' of a time she had, and how sincere in her analysis Joan had been.

A week later, though, he relives a day spent with Irene, and it leaves him with the oddest feeling of guilt.

* * *

Whenever Joan does anything particularly endearing, he remembers Irene, and the days after her.

In dreams, he keeps stabbing needles into skin, experiencing the rush of endorphins for the first time. The drugs act with rapid speed, sending him into a temporary vision of clarity, away from the remorse. Suddenly Sherlock doesn't need to ponder every insignificant detail in every single intake of sight - he is free, away from his own mind, and the result is staggeringly welcome. It's much like settling into a new skin, feeling the prickle of detachment between the world and its mortality.

So this is what it must be like, to be a god.

So. This is what it must be like to be  _normal_ , then. It's an exemplary place to visit; perhaps he would like to relocate, then.

It is relived on loop, the ecstasy of being  _okay_  again, or at least not drowning in sorrows and regrets. Each time, blonde hair and teasing smiles would come to mind, a blur of luminescence on the horizon, before he squeezed the needles harder and braced for the highs.

Each time, when he woke up, he thought of Watson, and wondered what she would say about him.

* * *

Irene was not Irene. She was Moriarty.

She was never a painter, a visionary trying to search for the right inspiration.

She was never the bright spark he had assumed her to be, the clever and brilliant patch of light in a dark world.

She was never  _his_ , as she never loved him in the first place, did she? And, even if she had, Sherlock was her assignment before her lover, and in the end she choose her criminal empire over him.

Damn, it shouldn't  _hurt_  this much.

Joan gives him sideways glances, toeing around him now that he's out of the hospital like he's made of glass. She's not pushing him to talk, not pressuring him into revealing his feelings on the subject.

She says that he has every right to feel sad and lonely and betrayed. You don't get over someone you love so easily, no matter who they are.

Sherlock will survive. He always does, and he did the first time. Most days, he is fine, and he can shove Moriarty into a mental drawer.

He doesn't need her. He has a life.

He does. Really.

Sherlock and Joan have a very good thing going for them. It's . . . home.

The only signs he shows of cracking are the ones found in his nightly visions. It's Irene, at a windowsill, watching the rain through rippled curtains. And then, there she is, raising a haughty eyebrow at something trying he managed to say. She's cooking eggs on a lazy golden morning and burning toast in a toaster, a quality that he had always found endearing for some inexplicable reason. Irene is here, she is there, she is laughing at clever jokes and sipping tea and throwing her arms around his neck. She and her terribly pretty memories are  _everywhere_ , and suddenly they are smothering and inescapable and he wants to light all of those fond moments on fire and watch them blaze to ashes.

He sorts through them, observing each one with a trained eye, and he attempts to weed out which events were genuine and which were all make believe. He finds, with a start, that even the great Sherlock Holmes cannot deduce the difference between reality and pure fantasies anymore.

He hates her, he thinks. But not nearly as much as Sherlock hates himself for not noticing how wrong he was for loving her.

* * *

So. Mycroft and Joan shagged.

Well. That's . . .

He can't even think about it. Joan and Mycroft put together turn his stomach.

So, as a result, he thinks about it all the time.

Mostly out loud. Mostly in the form of a vicious barb.

Joan deserved better. Joan deserved the world.

( _You are better than Mycroft_ , says a little voice in the back of his head. He's rather fond of ignoring it.)

Sherlock gives it up, eventually. But not before numerous nightmares involving Joan and Mycroft  _together_. How horrible.

* * *

Joan has been kidnapped and he is falling apart at the seams.

He's furious, and terrified, and so  _worried_  he's going to tear himself in two.

Sherlock is all chaos and brilliance and flash, bright and burning. Joan was reliable, stable, grounding, the one that made sense and was organized and created plans and could think like a normal human being. She's always been his other half, his order, and now she is gone, and he is loosing it badly.

Mycroft is there, stupid and useless and not-Joan. This is all his fault. This is all his troublesome brother's fault.

It should be Mycroft. Mycroft should be gone, being tortured or beaten or god knows what.

Not Joan. Not his Joan Watson.

If she dies, he will never forgive Mycroft. Sherlock will hate him until the end of time and even beyond that.

"I think she's the person you love most in this world," his sibling tells him, saying the words softly as though Sherlock is a wild animal he is trying not to alarm. His eyes reveal all the guilt he is harboring, and it occurs to the consulting detective that perhaps Mycroft is just as torn up about Joan's vanishing act as he is.

But that doesn't change the fact that she is still not here, and Mycroft is the reason why.

Sherlock wants to kill him.

He won't stop wanting to kill him until Joan is back where she belongs, back home, and tucked away in her room, sleeping like there is no tomorrow. She will wake up to fresh breakfast and warm coffee and then proceed to go on her run. She'll come and take a shower, change again, and head up to the station to look at cold case files or a new investigation, if she's up for either. Then, they will return, and she'll be safe and happy and busy again, and he'll watch her read a book or type on her computer or walk back upstairs to nap.  _That_  is their life, their life together. That's what is meant to be.

Bloody Mycroft.

He tries to refocus, as being pissed beyond belief won't get back Joan Watson from her kidnappers, and formulates new strategies.

All the while, he thinks of what his brother said:  _I think she's the person you love most in this world._ Mycroft is right, for once in his miserable existence. Joan  _does_ mean the world to him.

He wouldn't survive another day without her there.

* * *

When she is brought back to him, she's exhausted but mostly unharmed. She's feeling betrayed, and rightfully so, by Mycroft, and Sherlock seriously considers tearing his older brother's head off of his shoulders. It is one thing to toy with Sherlock, but it is another entirely to mess with Joan.

She goes upstairs, sleeps, and in the morning she mentions leaving the Brownstone to find her own place.

She can't be serious, of course. It's just stress and panic and loose emotions, drifting around.

She's confused, obviously, because she still has to want golden afternoons and beekeeping on the roof and heading out for work together like he does. If she doesn't want that life, he has no idea why he's even there.

So. It's not real.

It's not.

* * *

"You have this pull about you . . . it's like gravity," she explains, smiling in a bittersweet manner. And, she continues to say, if she doesn't move out, she'll get trapped in his orbit and she'll never experience an existence apart from his again.

She really means it, doesn't she?

The only problem is, he doesn't want Watson to leave. He wants to be closer still, to know every single secret and be able to read every single line on her face with practiced ease. He wants her to pass out over the table while shifting through case files and he wants her to be woken up every morning in a new way, preferably with a turtle involved. He wants her to be the first person he sees every morning and the last face he passes when he goes to sleep. They're  _partners_ , and he never thought all that would change.

Joan is right, though. If she didn't leave now he'd never let her go. He'd request, rather vocally, that she never leave his side.

He understands. He's a bit of a wreck, isn't he?

Sherlock starts preparing for the beginning of the end.

He dreams and reminisces before finding himself, years younger, roaming the dusky streets of London.

London's lovely this time of year. Perhaps he'll stay a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so this is the beginning of a new mini series. Again, it's going to be following canon for the most part up until midway through season three, which is about as far as I've watched.
> 
> So, hope everybody enjoyed this. It was going to be a long oneshot until I decided to break it up into parts, which is why I'm saying there will now be four sections. Joanlock will grow, just hang in there. 
> 
> This was a more . . . whimsical style, I guess, then I usually go for. It was another fever-dream-esc AU I thought of late at night, so I hope people enjoyed it. 
> 
> If you've gotten this far, thanks for hanging in there. Have a great day!


	2. And The Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next installment in the admittedly small saga. This is going to be based upon his time in London and how he fared during the gap between seasons. It's a big patch of the lives of Watson and Holmes that is completely glossed over. Sherlock meets Kitty and solves some cases while being associated with MI6, but that's about all we get to know for sure. I guess this is my interpretation, then.
> 
> This will probably be a little bigger than the last chapter (if you didn't realize this, I write the opening note before the actual story, so I have no idea how things are going to shake out - in a weird way, that sort of makes us even) but hopefully just as interesting. That and, while I know that Sherlock meets Kitty years after her traumatic past, I kinda took artistic liberty and wrote the first encounter as I thought it could go as opposed to what may have happened. I know that's probably not how it went, but I thought the scene would be slightly funny and decided to make it my own.
> 
> All that aside, thanks for sticking around to chapter two. I really appreciate that.
> 
> Anyways, I'll stop talking. Enjoy!

He left with little more than a note.

He's by himself, wandering across a city overseas that is both familiar and completely foreign again. It's home but not.

This is what he wanted. To leave, to make a fresh start, to pretend he was fine with being Sherlock Holmes, man of mechanics and mystery, utterly alone.

It's miserable. Absolutely miserable. Even when he sleeps.

* * *

He passes 221B over the next few weeks. He considers going inside, seeing as the building is probably his now, but it doesn't seem right.

The last time he was there, Joan was staying with him.

So Sherlock keeps walking, shuffling with his shoulders hunched and his hands folded into the coat he's been sporting. Step over step, step over step, and then 221B Baker Street is far out of sight before he remembers to look up.

He dreams about manning up and clicking the door shut behind him, but in every single one of those,  _Mycroft_  is in his kitchen, anyhow, which is more than enough encouragement to stay away.

* * *

Sherlock isn't looking for a friend. Really, he isn't.

Still, he stumbles into Kitty during an investigation, anyhow.

She's sitting in Scotland Yard, drowning in a hideous orange quilt and strewn out on a bench, swiping her nose with her left hand. At first, he completely passes over her, dismissing the young girl as background information. He's never been very conscious in social situations, per say, but it appears that the station is rather short staffed tonight.

"Looking for something?" she mutters dryly, sniffing again. Sherlock focuses in on Kitty, realizing that she must be addressing him given the unfortunate lack of officers.

"The commanding officer. I inquired a while ago about a case and I texted him to meet me here, but it appears that he's preoccupied. Probably by any pretty girl; he did seem to be a predictable, weak-willed man for an investigator, if you will," the genius declares, smiling wryly. It's been a long night. "A bit boring for a teenage girl?" She leans back, uncombed hair falling over her shoulders.

"Oh, didn't you notice the blanket they wrapped around me? It's for comfort, apparently, because I could be in shock. Luckily, I was able to send the intermediate who's been babysitting me on some fool's errand to get an ice pack - she's been watching me like a hawk all night." She stretches, the girl, and smirks without humor. "But, please, I'm a boring teenage girl. Don't waste your time on me."

He examines her again. Her locks are fairly well groomed - no split ends coupled with meticulous curls, as is the trend of youths hoping to impress the opposite sex, and yet her head is greasy. She hasn't washed up in at least four or five days, which isn't typical for someone so attentive to their styling. No fresh makeup, either, if his knowledge of cosmetics is up to par (and, as always, it is). Her boots are scuffed, and though they appear well loved and the soles are rather worn they are constantly polished, and a girl who adored those shoes enough to wear them everywhere and maintain them consistently wouldn't allow them to get so banged up. The little he could actually make out of her clothing was slightly ripped, as if tugged on and off in a hurry, and her back was curled while the shoulders folded back, indicative of defensive behavior. She's sustained an injury.

The conclusion, given all of that information, is easy to draw; she is most definitely a victim. Possibly the one of the very same case he's just been interested in.

"Were you, per chance, assaulted?" he asks, realizing seconds later that his inquiry may not be the smartest move towards a traumatized youth.

Joan taught him quite a bit about boundaries and propriety with normal people. He ought to remember some of those lessons before speaking.

Instead, though, she snorts.

"Really? What gave it away?" She snaps her fingers. "The shock blanket, I bet. I always point it out and then it's ever so easy to put two and two together."

"Always?"

"You're not the first person to ask what I'm doing at Scotland Yard," the stranger murmurs dryly. "As you can see, it's ever so busy in here. If only something entertaining would occur." He lifts an eyebrow, accepting her silent challenge.

"Kidnapping, five years ago, and abuse while you were captured. But this is different. You've been taken up off the street, roughed up, and your back lacerations have been split again. Minor scarring, perhaps burns, but you fit the victim profile of the . . . " He trails off, sighing. "No, just beaten. Drat. I thought we were getting somewhere, but you were just privy to a common mugging, weren't you?" Her eyes have gone wide with shock of a different type, yet she pulls it together quickly.

"So. You know things just by looking at me. What, do you read minds or something?"

"It's merely a series of logical deductions, simple observations. You pick it up with time." She leans forward, shock blanket slipping off her shoulders.

"You got one thing wrong, though." Sherlock rolls his eyes but complies.

"And what's that?"

"Can you keep a secret?" she whispers, at the edge of her chair. The genius almost snorts, but pulls it together at the last second.

"I promise not to reveal whatever it is you're about to tell me, yes. Unless, of course, you happen to be a murderer." She waves him closer, gesturing impatiently with both hands. The girl, once she deems him to be within good proximity, cups his ear and talks.

"I bet you feel really stupid now, huh?" she says quietly, the laughter evident in her voice. He frowns and scoots away.

God, she's shaking so hard she's rattling the chair.

"You know, I don't know why I expected you to be anything more than what you are. Everyone has been remarkably dull since I've arrived in London, I must admit." She snorts between her stroke inducing laughter. "Very mature."

"Bloody hell, your  _face_ ," she whispered through stuttering drawls. "By far, the best thing I've seen all day."

Well. This  _was_  a waste of time.

Just like that, the familiar annoyance of his ringtone starts up, and he's relieved from constant boredom. Sherlock reaches down his front pocket, trying to whip out his phone before whatever incompetent officer out in the field decides to give up and continue their display of bumbling ineptitude. However, when he feels around the confines of his jacket, nothing is there.

With a frown, the consulting detective extends a hand down the other pocket. Still, there is nothing.

He glances at the girl. She's still laughing her arse off, practically about to fall out of her very uncomfortable chair. It's almost over, though, and as she takes in one last shuddering breath, he catches a glimpse of something shiny beneath the folds of her far-too-big stress blanket. Something that looks suspiciously like his mobile.

Sherlock snatches it from the crook of her arm, flipping it over. Suddenly, she's scowling furiously.

"Oh, come on. That's no fair."

"You pick-pocketed me. No one ever pick-pockets me without awarding my notice." The girl huffs and looks away.

"Well, I'd like to think I'm pretty much a master, if you're so worried. Don't feel to bad, most people don't notice me for hours."

"I did."

"Your phone rung. That doesn't count."

Right, his mobile. The one that's still ringing.

Ah.

He, still keeping his attention fixed on the stranger, accepted the call.

"Sherlock Holmes speaking," he says dryly, hoping that this will be brief, succinct, and interesting. It's none of those things, of course, because Scotland Yard can be terribly inefficient when it desires to be, and the person on the line is clearly one of the 'fresh meat' on the force being told to handle a call by his superiors. With the complete lack of social skills he possesses - the stuttering, the repetitive dialogue, the constant  _apologizing_  - it's a wonder the police are still in business at all.

He ends the conversation a few minutes later, returning the phone to his jacket and actually buttoning the silly thing, for once. He casts another weary gaze at the girl, who has been attentive to Sherlock ever since the message was taken, and in a stroke of pure insanity, he talks to her again.

"You seem a lot cleverer than half the people around the Yard. How would you like to abandon your babysitter who still hasn't come back with your ice pack - a bit telling, that - and come investigate a crime scene with me?"

Her eyes light up like firecrackers.

Despite the previous mugging, whatever mysterious past traumas she'd endured, and the noticeable lack of sleep and grooming, the stranger practically leapt off of her seat, stress blanket falling to the floor.

"Kitty, at your service," she smiles, thrilled to be doing anything that wasn't  _this_. "God, I'm so bloody happy you came by tonight. Nicking things from the secretaries gets a little boring after a while." Sherlock raises an eyebrow at the name but doesn't mention it.

"Hopefully you're better company than you look. We'll be stuck together for the duration of the night."

"I'm looking forward to it."

It turns out Kitty, barring her ridiculous title, has a sharp eye and an especially sharp tongue, as is proven when she both discovers a key detail in the investigation in under ten minutes while simultaneously insulting an analyst ("Honestly, sir, I thought your job was to gather information. Your paycheck is wasted on you; why hire someone who's blind, deaf, and an idiot to perform in your profession?").

Sherlock may or may not have suppressed some ill placed chuckles.

He may or may not have given up and started laughing altogether once the poor man turned red in the face.

Either way, meeting Kitty is probably the best thing to have happened to the genius since his return, and he allows her to crash on his couch, as it is doubtful that she has anywhere else to go. She's an exceptionally good pick-pocket for a young woman; where else would she live but the streets?

He dreams about the way she made him smile, and then about how Kitty, juvenile as it was, nearly doubled over in hysterics after cracking such a stupid joke.

Halfway through the visions, he realizes this was probably the first time he'd truly grinned since returning. The first time he allowed himself to remember what happiness and having friends was like.

After that, he's quite decided on one thing. He's a very funny man, indeed.

* * *

Kitty remains on his couch until morning, and he starts making scrambled eggs and french toast silently in the kitchen upon waking up. When she finally rouses, she is visibly surprised to see that there's a plate set out for her.

"What's this, then?"

"Breakfast, obviously. You've proven to be halfway observant so far, so I'd hope you could deduce the meaning of a few eggs and a piece of bread." He cut the food with the flat side of his fork.

She continued to stare.

"Well? Kitty, good god, just sit down and eat."

Kitty does as she is told. The teenager ignores her rather uncomfortable bruises and settles at the table.

"I got a text inquiring about a triple homicide, if you want to walk down to the morgue with me in a moment. Not for everyone, I'll admit, but I could use an extra pair of eyes now and again. Company wouldn't be too remiss." He glances at his companion sideways. "So, interesting?" Kitty carefully picks up her fork and takes a bite. She tries not to let the syrup get all over her face, but it does so anyways.

"You wanna know something?" the teenager says, wiping at her mouth. "It sort of sounds nuts, but that sounds like the best thing that's happened to me in months. Hell, why not?" She takes a swig of the provided beverage - a glass of orange juice. "Thanks for all of this, by the way. I didn't exactly get to thank you before and I'll be out of your hair tomorrow, if you need me gone."

Sherlock stares at the young woman. He stares until she begins to shift in her chair, though more from self inflection than unease.

He's really not good for anybody right now. He doesn't know if he'll ever be good for anybody.

But he's been absolutely miserable the last few weeks. Something has to give.

"No problem at all," he finds himself stating instead. "My place is a little too quiet. Perhaps you could stick around, if you don't care. I imagine I'm an awful flatmate, anyways." She slowly smiles, almost, and suddenly seems a lot more at home. Kitty stabs at her egg with renewed vigor.

"Really? You'd just let a teenage girl bunk with you?"

"I don't see why not. You're probably a lot less dull than most potential neighbors."

"One of my many charms." He finishes, and so does she, and then they are off to the morgue before ten o'clock. It's just another day for Sherlock Holmes, but a monumental one for Kitty, and he observes her wonderment at his fanciful life with a subdued curiosity.

How strange this all must seem, after living amongst all the normal people for the entirety of your existence. It all must feel so foreign.

And yet, Kitty doesn't act like she should, like this is all odd and alarming. She's just as enthralled about it as she was last night, practically leaping at the prospect of escape. She's behaving as though she's found her calling.

He dreams about it, about how excited she was to simply be doing something that meant  _anything_ , and he cannot help but feel a fierce kinship with the girl.

* * *

He thinks about Joan, about how betrayed alone she must feel, how utterly  _angry_ , how one hundred percent done she probably is with him. He glares at his phone and thinks about the rift he's cut between himself and New York. Is the police office alright? Did Gregson succeed in getting back with his wife? Joan, god, is she even consulting anymore?

For the first time in nearly forever, he's not entirely sure. How inconvenient - this must be how other  _ordinary_  people feel all the time, not knowing things. It's maddening, the uncertainty.

Sherlock dreams about nights at the Brownstone. It makes him feel all the more achy come morning when he wakes up in London again.

At least Kitty is there. At least he is not alone.

* * *

"You know, people are idiots," Kitty says primly, words clipped and pointed. An officer was looking - no, glaring - in their direction. At first, the detective was rather certain the bureau agent was glancing over at him, as most of the law enforcement bodies in London had taken a targeted disliking to Sherlock Holmes. However, this one was mentally stabbing Kitty, who stood next to him with crossed arms, returning his glare for all she was worth.

Of course, it only took Sherlock seconds to deduce the reason. This was the tenth adventure he had dragged the teenage girl along to, and while he enjoyed her company amongst the bumbling cops and the occasional MI6 check-up agent (for such an advanced and sophisticated agency, their methods of evasion were terrible - if they wanted to ensure he was fulfilling his obligations, they could have simply had someone tag along for the day, not have what was essentially a glorified babysitter/'spy' trail along behind the investigative team), it was abundantly clear that not every officer was fond of having a young civilian poke around the crime scenes. She wasn't really affiliated with any of them, after all, and her instinct for examination was a good sight better than most. Frankly, who wants to be upstaged by a teenager at work?

It's fine, mostly. Just not right now.

"She's still lingering around?" the commanding officer asks, raising an eyebrow at Kitty. "Thought your pet project would be gone by now."

"Still here, still has ears," the teenager mumbles beneath her breath, breaking away from her essential starring match to direct her gaze towards the ground.

"Still around, yes," Sherlock replies, waving him off. "And we're ready to work."

"We can't keep bringing in teenage girls with no expertise, Holmes," the nameless man presses again. He's not so much nameless, actually, as he is not important enough to remember the name of.

"She's . . . a friend." Sherlock says dismissively.

He can't remember the last time he's said that.

It was probably during a conversation about Joan.

God, he misses her in days like these.

But, yes, surprisingly, Kitty has become a friend. Strange, isn't it? However, he gets the feeling she gets him better than anybody else in London. Outcasts tend to gravitate towards eachother, after all.

The officer still raises an eyebrow.

"You have friends?"

"Ones that assist me on cases? Sure." The genius answers, starting to become genuinely irritable. "Would you move? You're obstructing the rest of the investigation." He moves, face red, shuffling away.

"Just, could you and your apprentice work a little faster, then? You're starting to overstay your welcome."

"Yes, like we've never done  _that_ before," Sherlock replies drolly, walking in with Kitty at his heels. She mutters a brief 'thanks', a grateful smile tugging at the edges of her lips.

You know, she does have some potential, doesn't she? With him as her mentor, she could go far.

At night, he dreams of cases and examinations and his experiences teaching Joan, his protegee and partner. Somehow, thinking about her is a little less painful now.

* * *

"So you're my teacher?" she asks, laying on the couch and stretching.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. Don't sound so dissapointed."

"I'm not dissapointed at all."

"Well then. Good."

"Yeah. I think . . . I don't know. This will be good for me. Exciting, isn't it?"

"Stimulating, yes. But you have to do everything I tell you to, Kitty. An apprenticeship from me isn't a game. I reserve the right to resend my offer." He pauses. "So, with that in mind, we need milk. So . . ." She groans and gets off the sofa, tugging on her boots.

"You're impossible. I don't even have money." He raises an eyebrow.

"You filched twenty pounds off of that annoying officer earlier today. I saw you." Kitty sticks out her tongue.

"He deserved it. He's a prick."

"Most of them are. You can't be petulant forever if you want them to take you seriously."

"Why not? It's worked for you." Sherlock rolls his eyes and his companion smirks. She leaves with the stolen twenty pounds and a profound sense of victory.

He dreams about the last time someone called him childish. He relives Joan's exasperation with a grin, for once.

* * *

Kitty has moved in.

This is not so surprising. He pretty much invited her in. But it doesn't fully register with the genius that he has a roommate until he sees her flipping through the telly, whining about how idiotic the news reporter is. In all honesty, her claims are valid. Anyone past the age of seven can say 'cumulonimbus' without stumbling over the letters, but that is all besides the point. The point is that he has a roommate again, and within that roommate he has an apprentice, and the last time he had one of those it didn't exactly end so well.

As all the millennials in New York are so fond of saying, 'fuck'.

He looks in the spare room of his unit, checking as thought to affirm this new reality. Sure enough, Kitty's sparse collection of clothing masquerading as a wardrobe is sitting in her designated chifferobe, and her purse is standing upright on an end table, and her spare set of shoes is tucked beneath a corner of the bed, which is left unmade, covers strewn all about. It looks lived in, made for actual people as opposed to ill defined, hypothetical guests, and yes, this knocks the gravity of his situation back into his face for the second time in five minutes.

He's living with somebody else who is going to be there for a while. She's  _his_  responsibility.

"Kitty, we're going out," he says abruptly, walking swiftly out of her (and it is hers, now, isn't it?) room with her bag in hand. He tosses it to her and begins pulling on a coat. "Your mobile is in there, right? And your wallet?" She nods, confused, turning off the newscast.

"Always. Mind telling me where we're going?" She asks this, voice inquisitive and bracing for 'there's been another assault', but she gets up and starts tying her shoelaces immediately. It almost makes him smile.

"The boutique down the road."

"What, did you discover a sudden interest in ladies' garments? Or are you shopping for a late night stand or something? Because I don't feel comfortable helping you buy things in either scenario."

"You have a grand total of five shirts and two pairs of pants. I though teenage girls like you  _jumped_  at the chance to spend other people's money on frivolous outfits." She pauses.

"You, the great Sherlock Holmes, are going clothing shopping? With  _me_?" He shrugs.

" _For_  you, technically, but I suppose I'll be with you as well. MI6 will probably be happy to know you are capable of dressing properly. Top of their priorities, I'm sure." Kitty nearly hugs him, he thinks. She raises her hand and then deftly pulls it down, disguising it as some sort of insipid stretch. It's an unspoken truth; Sherlock Holmes doesn't  _do_ hugs. He doesn't understand them. He's not used to having people to hug in the first place.

Nevertheless, after hitting three different clothing stores, some 'trendy' music shop nestled on the corner, and another convenience station, he appreciates the sentiment. They got away with four new jackets, two skirts, five dresses - one evening, two summer, two casual, three pairs of pants in various colors, and several rolls of socks and various undergarments (he met Kitty again outside of this section - he has very little desire to be known as both the aloof yet brilliant detective and also the strange man who loiters around the women's bra department, awaiting the hopefully quick return of his teenage associate). Upon lengthy consideration, she continues to purchase black fingerless gloves, a few sweaters, a sensible winter cap, a six pack of discount running shorts, a particularly stupid tank top, and many pairs of shoes. Far too many shoes to count. She was a teenager, after all.

And, among the things they collected that weren't clothing articles, there was a cheap pair of headphones, a new phone cover, a hair curler and a straightener, a few makeup products beyond the ones she'd miraculously acquired and stashed in the bathroom, a decent hairbrush, several cds, posters, and albums from that idiotic music store, and an assortment of 'feminine hygiene products'. He refused to touch or even acknowledge the existence of that bag, childish as it was, and Kitty teased him about it relentlessly.

When they arrive back, they shove everything into the room's closet, which had remained untouched before. Now it was at least halfway filled and seemed infinitely less empty. Personal products go into the toiletry cabinet, the music things are crammed into corners, and her room truly looks like it is . . . he doesn't know. Like a home, maybe. Something that she has all to herself.

His pocket is a few hundred dollars emptier, but when he dreams, he sees Kitty and her excitement during the shopping spree. How is it possible for someone to possess so much anticipation towards such a mundane, trying ritual? It occurs to him that maybe he's given her more than clothing and a few select items. Maybe he's given her something to  _be_  excited for in the first place, as strange as it sounds.

She's really his apprentice, though. Weird, huh?

* * *

Once, without thinking, he dials up a very familiar number - he's memorized it long ago.

The phone chimes once, twice, and then he shuts it off, swiping to cut off the transmission before it even began, really.

The label reading 'Joan' goes dark, his phone screen fades to black, and he looks at the floor, hand kneading his forehead.

This is ridiculous. It shouldn't be this  _hard_.

That night, when he finally falls asleep, he tries to summon the courage to let the dial carry through. He waits next to the mobile with anxiety and anticipation, but makes no moves to change anything, to disrupt the feed. Finally, after a virtual eternity, someone picks up.

"Hello?" comes a voice, and it's  _her_  voice, and it's like . . . he's not quite sure. Sherlock can't really put what she sounds like into words. However, it makes him feel all the lighter, hearing her in person, just knowing that she's there. Joan is the one who brings him back to reality when he's running a thousand miles an hour, and just hearing 'hello' is almost like coming home.

Almost. She's not really there, though, is she?

So, when he resumes consciousness, he remains in bed for the next hour, staring at his phone the entire time. He twitches, struggles over whether or not to try again, and concludes that nothing will change. The definitions of insanity and stupidity are much the same: doing the same thing repeatedly and yet expecting different results. Sherlock knows himself. He knows that for all his intellect, he is not bold with matters requiring personal attachment, and Joan was the person he was most attached to in the world. She was his partner, his best friend, and there would be no way that he could stand up to her again and face her disappointment. Joan had been the person who believed in him. He wasn't ready to acknowledge the contrary yet.

Eventually he gets up, annoys Kitty until she, too, has risen, and makes smoothies. The deafening whirring of the blender is very effective in blocking out all of his thoughts.

* * *

He passes 221B for the second time since coming to London. He comes to a dead halt in front of the building, silently taking in the far too familiar brick, the notches in the door. He finds the spare key where it always is, and shoves inside with trepidation.

It isn't exactly how he remembers it. When Mycroft, before his incarceration, promised to have everything moved back in, that didn't necessarily mean that all of his belongings would be thrust into their original places. Who could recall exactly where things went after so much time, save Sherlock Holmes? And yet, there was one of his old diagrams, framed and sitting tall upon the wall. Here was an old seismograph he had patiently brought back to life, resting on a beaten Tibetan coffee table. And, over there, he could make out his collection of skeletons, carefully picked out from many a morgue over the years for the purpose of studying human evolution and anatomical structure.

Things weren't exactly as they had been, no. But walking into 221B Baker Street, complete with all of its unusual charm, was much akin to taking a fresh breath of air.  _This_ was the version of London he had longed to share with Joan: the cold, dusky nights by the fireplace, the mysterious artifacts, the winding, seemingly endless corridors, all of which possessed intrigue and uniqueness. 221B and all of England was meant to be an adventure for her, something exciting.

He turned around, grinning madly, expecting to see her similar look of awe and appreciation. He was sorely dissapointed when he realized Joan was still in New York.

He'd forgotten, hadn't he? For all his genius, he still forgets that he left her behind, not the other way around.

It might be better this way. She'll get her space, get to do as she pleases, and he's . . . Well, he's got to have something. He's got his work, and the task of looking after Kitty, and those are momentous, important things. Those should be enough.

But Joan's still his best friend. He misses her like he misses the sun, blotted out behind London rainstorms.

Either way, he introduces Kitty to 221B the very next day. She, at least, is instantly enamored.

And, if he dreams that Joan was there too, smiling at all his old newspaper clippings, examining his telescopes, and prodding at his old chemistry experiments, then that's nobody's business, anyhow.

* * *

He touches the dreaded phone again and dials.

No one picks up. This is understandable, as it is 3am in New York City at the moment. Sherlock half wishes she would answer, but subconsciously he picked this time knowing that she wouldn't be able to respond.

Sad, he can tell. However, cowardice is a rather potent strain of infection, he's found. It seizes control of one's mind and actions like a drug, and the genius has had quite a bit of experience in that department.

He listens to her pre-recorded voicemail message and hangs up quickly, staring at the ceiling with such ferocity, he's fairly certain he's burned a hole through the drywall. He dreams about staring at the ceiling and watching as the roof chips away, burying him beneath the dust and joists. Not such a bad way to go, after all.

* * *

He has another meeting with MI6. They are not happy with him and his 'I work alone except for those I choose' attitude. This is not so surprising - few people can actually tolerate him at all. However, MI6 has been increasingly unhappy with him to the point where Sherlock is convinced they are going to take rash action and sic assassins on his flat any day now.

Targeted by hit men. However would Gregson and Bell take the news? One of their own, shot down by the government. My, how times have changed.

"You should be focusing on our tasks, our assignments, before anything else," an operative tells him, much like a parent to a misbehaving child. "You joined our ranks. You work for us. You're one of the most brilliant men alive; why can't you just  _understand_  that?" He takes a long smoke, glaring at the detective expectantly. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"There's a great deal of difference between understanding and acceptance," Sherlock provides instead, folding his legs over one of MI6's overstuffed meeting room chairs. "A drowning man can understand that the water will fill his lungs with fluid, effectively drowning him and causing internal chaos, and he can comprehend that the pressure alone may crush his organs if his body sinks too deep. However, he may not have accepted the reality of his situation and the prospect of death, despite the odds of being killed at sea being stacked against him. His failure to follow the predestined route of nature may result in his eventual survival, if he is able to come back to his senses and find a path to shore. In much the same way, I understand that I am a part of your agency, and yet the camaraderie and loyalty to the system you are so fond of reminding me off haven't been instilled yet. I've signed on with MI6, but I don't have the accept or appreciate your fruitless government enterprising. Now, do  _you_  comprehend that?" He stands up, brushing off his pristine trousers. "I'm off to the morgue, actually. Scotland Yard only remains interesting for so long, so it's best to find another outlet for my oh-so-unique skill set. It's not as if anything you're offering right now is of any relevance, and I doubt any more of your insipid chats with me is going to curve the onset of boredom." The man splutters in his chair.

"MI6 still has questions, Sherlock Holmes! At least your brother could get things done!" Sherlock turns around, brow raised, and for a brief instant the silly man thinks he has succeeded at getting beneath his skin.

"Frankly, I don't give a fig about your questions. As you've already seen fit to say, I'm one of the most brilliant men alive, and if the same could be said of my idiot brother, don't you think Mycroft would be listening to your tirade instead of me?" He leaves without so much as another word, having angered the forces that be once again.

Kitty laughs about it endlessly, once he tells her the events of that afternoon.

He replays the man's bumbling ineptitude that night and quite agrees with her reaction. People are idiots, honestly.

* * *

He's staring at the phone again when Kitty catches him, raising an unimpressed eyebrow.

"Again?" He turns to glare at her, jolted out of his memorabilia.

"Again, Kitty?"

"You keep wanting to talk to some poor girl, but then you wuss out at the last minute. It's pathetic." The genius scowls.

"She's not some random  _girl_ , she was my partner. And I'm not afraid of talking to her." Kitty nods with mock sympathy.

"Got into a lover's quarrel? I thought you chided the guys at the yard for mixing work and personal business, you hypocrite." He sighs, groaning while scrubbing a hand across his features.

"Bloody hell, Kitty, she's not my  _lover_ , she's just . . . she's Joan, alright? She's my best friend." The teenager sits up with obvious interest.

"Well? Go on. I'd like to know about your partner. You don't really discuss your situation before moving back to London with me. It's kind of cool."

She's Kitty, and she never stands down, so he agrees, detailing all of their initial adventures, sweeping the teenage girl into his stories. It lights a fire in her eyes, seeing him like this, and he ends up discussing Joan's training as well.

"She sounds . . . amazing," Kitty said finally. "Your first protegee, right?"

"Her training came out well. She mastered all the skills - everything I hoped for and more in a student." He gives her a sideways glance. "On that note, have you been practicing your baton form? Single stick is an important, underappreciated skill, you know." She nods slowly.

"Yeah, I have been. Did you teach Joan single stick?" He blinks.

"I taught her all the necessary curiosities, so yes, single stick. Why?" She gets up, stretches, and begins to leave the room, a wicked grin spreading across her face.

"Well, if I want to beat the first protegee, I'm going to need to practice, right?" The teenager has an air of determination, of drive, about her. He can't help but feel proud.

Joan would be good with Kitty, he thinks that night.

* * *

He royally pisses off MI6 for real this time. He is a big enough man to admit when he is wrong, and maybe that scathing comment about the government's inefficiency and his harsh observation of several officials' marital statuses was slightly out of line. Mistakes were made.

But he looks around the room and cannot bring himself to regret speaking his mind. It is not the result of pettiness or prejudice against the system - it's simply his perpetual state of being. He's Sherlock Holmes, and he will be brutally honest without thinking about what he is saying. It's all true, anyhow, even if it is cruel. The one with the beard and the portly face had only about a year before an inevitable divorce, and the man in the blue suit's wife was clearly cheating. It's so obvious, really, it should have knocked them over the heads.

Yet apparently embarrassing the elite figureheads of a secret government organization in one of their most important board meetings is a serious issue, and now everyone is glaring at the consulting detective as if they want to burn holes through his head.

"I'm right," he blurts out, knowing full well that that's probably not the right answer. A man's eye twitches from across the table.

"Sherlock, you need to learn control and structure. An organization is only as strong as its weakest links," one states, massaging his brow thoroughly. "Learn discipline and act like a grown up."

"Please. You make me attend these pointless meetings and have agents check up on me. You treat me like a belligerent child that needs management when your own home lives are falling apart." He scans the room again, searching and sifting through faces. "That woman over there, her - "

"We know you're clever, Sherlock," another interrupts. "That's never been in doubt. But this is an organization of prestige and importance. Treat it with respect."

"Enlighten me, where do those factors come into play? I could easily outpace the vast majority of the board in wealthy, experience, title, talent, intelligence - I am better at Scotland Yard's investigation tactics than the whole of Scotland Yard. Maybe  _I_ should be running this team, then."

"If you feel so strongly about our inefficiency, the door is open. We're not stopping you," the first man remarks, crossing his arms. His eyes are daring him, pushing him to walk away.

Sherlock doesn't disappoint. He's pretty much burned all of his bridges, anyways.

"Good day, then," he says, gathering his coat and shoving his arms through the sleeves forcefully. "Good riddance, too." He makes his way to the exit, leaving the whole of the representatives of MI6 gaping in his wake. "Oh, and by the way, I quit. Have fun finding a new lapdog."

Just like that, he is done with MI6 and they with him. It's dizzying, this rush of emotion and adrenaline. It's the most freeing thing he's experienced in months.

He relives the moment that night, the taste of victory nestled between his maw, and grins wildly.

* * *

The Reichenbach happens, for even the greats need to fall, and Sherlock Holmes is definitely one of the greats.

(He knows he needs to leave. London was never permanent. But now his beautiful city, the one that was all gleaming towers and dusky evenings and hidden streets seems far too claustrophobic and far too much of a reminder of all his mistakes.)

It's been nearly a year.

That's far too long.

* * *

Kitty doesn't understand. This is obvious.

"I don't understand," she says out loud as though to affirm this point. "Joan is . . ."

"In New York. And I want to return to New York."

"And I need my background information drawn up? Why?" He rolls his eyes.

"Because the Brownstone and all of my equipment is, for the most part, in New York. With Joan. And to travel, apparently most international airlines want to know you aren't a bomber or a terrorist, and hopefully not both. It shouldn't be a big deal, but I need your passport and background information." She looks at the ceiling, counting flecks in the paint. "Kitty? Still with me?"

"You're going to pity me after you see everything," she warns him, refusing to make eye contact. "I can get you that stuff, but you'll think I'm breakable. I hate that."

"God, is this what it's like to parent a teenager? It's so horribly dramatic," he sighs. "Kitty, you are a capable detective and a clever girl. I honestly couldn't care less about your background; do you think I'm proud of my track record? I was an addict at my lowest before I met my last partner. And, when I met you, you were an expert pickpocket. Nothing surprises me anymore." She stares at him with scrutiny, running slow eyes up and down his now familiar worn sneakers and suit jacket, before wordlessly nodding. The words stick to the back of her throat as she produces an official looking document from her room, carefully concealed beneath her things.

Funny. He couldn't recall having ever seen this envelope. She must have taken many precautions to keep it hidden from everyone, presumably for years.

"Thank you, Kitty," he tells her, the sentence coming out oddly thick and meaningful, and he cautiously draws out the first document.

When he first met the teenager, he noticed the old back injuries. This was inevitable, given his powers of innate deduction. However, he had never put much thought into them, other than the fact that she had been through some bad past experiences and they had since healed over with raised scars.

Now, though. Now the evidence of her traumas was recorded on paper.

She had been tortured and held captive by a serial killer who dabbled in the procuring of young women for what was essentially human trafficking. God knew what else the man did. Obviously, at the very least, the monster kidnapped civilians and took sadistic pleasure in torturing them before illegal transport. The bastard apparently had Kitty for three days before her natural genius and quick thinking proved enough to allow for her escape. Those marks on her back were not just marks - they were battle scars,  _brands_  seared into her skin by some psychopathic criminal.

 _Three days_. The killer had her trapped for  _days_ , and nobody had gotten around to rescuing her, his protegee.

That was . . .

Well. That was unacceptable.

Kitty stood by, watching him pour through the files. She was now drinking a cup of warm tea, avoiding his gaze.

"Before you ask, Scotland Yard knows. They took up the case - that's how they first got involved with me. They offered some witness protection, but they didn't catch the guy and there wasn't much real aid . . . I don't know. But they have a copy of all of this information. You could see why I hate showing just anybody this. Nobody wants to interact with a serial killer's prey, you know? It's a bit not good."

He says nothing for a long, long while. She shifts uncomfortably in her chair.

"Barring the fact that I mention this constantly, Scotland Yard really is comprised of idiots, isn't it?" he finally manages. "They should have caught this man. Undoubtedly, if I was there, I would have found him for you."

" . . . You're not, I don't know, mad at me? For not telling you something big about myself like this?"

"I'm plenty mad, but not at you. Those imbeciles should have done better. You were, what, five years younger? You never should have had to endure that hellscape. They're not even proper detectives - you saved  _yourself_ , that's impressive and ingenuitive." He pauses from his tirade. "I'm proud, actually. But  _bloody hell_ , I swear, I'm going to stop in at the Parliament to offer up a complaint about the investigative process England has set up. Tomorrow, I think, I'll just - " The brunette gets up out her chair and squeezes his hand tightly.

"Thanks," she whispers, tears tugging at the edges of her eyes. She's trying not to cry, isn't she?

He awkwardly pats her palm.

"Of course, Kitty. You're you. Why would you be anything less than incredible?"

It's what she needs to hear. She swipes at her face with the back of her digits, fingers messily smearing across her nose.

That night, he relives her quiet resignation, the bracing for the end, and he wonders if that was how he looks all the time: simply waiting around for the next fallout.

He cannot avoid everything forever, sadly.

* * *

He gets into the answering machine portion of his plan with Joan, this time. He doesn't know what to say, how to tell her he's coming back and how to admit that he's scared she'll hate him, so he says nothing, and the message is left blank.

"You need to talk eventually. She was your partner," Kitty reminds him. As though he could forget.

"I just . . . I can't gauge her from over the phone. I think I'm just counting down the time until I see her again."

"Then see her."

"I can't do that either. Joan can be terrifying."

"You're impossible," the teenager snorts, but she has no comment.

He dreams about what Kitty will blurt out next, about what wisdom about the complex being known as the human female she will deign him worthy of, but nothing rises up. It's very disappointing.

* * *

They are at the airport, and he's got major plans. He's instructed Kitty on single stick, advanced safe cracking, some basic car jack skills, poison identification, and deception and stealth. She's got a knack for shadowing and surveillance, too, and he has no reservations about her future abilities as a spy. The world should be on the lookout for Kitty.

She's going to have a real, entirely structured education in New York. She's going to see the sights and take guided notes on real, interesting crime scenes and even experience the Brownstone for the first time. Maybe, with another person inside it again, it'll seem more like a home and less alarmingly quiet again.

They board the plane and London disappears into whispers of mist and smoke, the entire city engulfed by clouds and open skies. They rise above the world as giants, observing from a point of omnipotence.

He will miss all of it terribly, yet there is a terrible and dizzying relief that comes from coming back.

He's going to make things right. He has to.

Sherlock drifts off halfway through the flight, Kitty already snoring next to him, falling through memories and motions as he does.

Joan is there.

Soon, maybe he'll see her smile in person.

Soon.  _Soon._

Eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was chapter two. I hope it was interesting - the season gap came out a lot longer than I thought it would be. It's just that nobody ever really goes over London, so I got kinda carried away in my descriptions to make up for the lack of structure.
> 
> That, and Joan and Sherlock already had a rock solid foundation before he left. He just kinda shows up with Kitty upon his return and she's just immersed in the storyline. I wanted them to be shown becoming friends and bonding before I just insert a random girl back into the plot.
> 
> I don't know. I think they have a rather cool dynamic going on that never gets explored.
> 
> Anyhow, here was this. Favorite or follow this if you liked it and please be sure to leave a comment. Thanks!


	3. Transitions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, the legendary third installment, up and running. 
> 
> Yup, no further fanfare. I'm very tired and out of clever things to say. Just read, guys, and have fun!

Sherlock and Kitty arrive in the late afternoon, the hour edging into the dusky New York nighttime with each fleeting second. The sun sets, disappearing behind the grand skyline of towering buildings, and ever so slowly the light fades from yellow to gold to an inky blue, swallowing up even the clouds.

It's magical, almost. He missed this city, inconceivable as it may be, and even though he rarely appreciated things like this - the sunsets, the atmosphere, the architecture, and all the other elements that composed background and superfluous information - it was nice.

"It's beautiful," the teenager says, as if the sight takes her breath away. He thought she'd miss London, and she does, he can tell, but after just a few moments standing in the heart of New York, she's already fallen in love.

When he first moved, he hadn't experienced that. But now, seeing it with fresh eyes, the detective can understand what she must be feeling. After so many months across the sea, everything that had been so familiar it had bordered upon mundane was stunning, especially the Brownstone, though that house had always been special. Park benches were fields of memorium, and streetlamps and phone booths the postmarks of a better time.

It really is just what he said. He missed this, all of it, like an ache.

As he began placing in old boxes and unpacking items from the basement, he realized how much he had left behind. An entire life, rebuilt from the ashes of the last, was created here, and all throughout this city. And he thought going back to his roots would help.

The problem was, he hadn't been trying to go back to his roots, scattered and faded though they may be. Sherlock was attempting to come back to himself again, to talk himself off the ledge that was fear. A change of scenery had done little to fix the internal problems, but he's trying. He's trying to make things right again.

So, in his dreams, when he relives her expression of awe and admiration, he finally finds the words with which to respond.

"It is beautiful, isn't it?"

* * *

They shuffle around furniture in the basement, check on the bees, and try to get the electrical up and running. Even for the genius that is Sherlock Holmes, it doesn't quite work as expected.

"I want to meet her," Kitty says as they unload her clothing into an upstairs closet. He glances at her sideways.

"Joan?"

"You've talked all about her. You trained me up like you trained her. I just . . . I don't know. I've got this image of her in my head." For a moment, Kitty sets down the blouse she was hanging. "I just want to know what she was like. You miss her like crazy. She was your best friend." The genius doesn't quite understand what to make of that assessment. It's perfectly reasonable, and what his apprentice has said is true.

Joan Watson, though. He wants to see her again, to show Kitty who she is. She'd be a welcome influence on the teenager.

But he's selfish. He's just . . . he wants to be able to talk to Joan in person. However, he doesn't feel like sharing her yet. He was the only one who got to be around the blindingly brilliant side of Joan. That was  _their_  partnership. And until he finds the best way to ensure she won't drop-kick the detective the next occasion they meet, Sherlock isn't ready to introduce her to his student.

It'll happen, yes. But not yet.

"You'll see Joan soon enough," he tells her, and then continues unpacking.

"But -"

"Soon enough," the genius repeats, and in his dreams he relives the way she frowns and mutters under her breath.

He should have expected the following, really. Was it really so preposterous to think that Kitty would take matters into her own hands?

* * *

Sherlock wants to strangle her.

Having Kitty  _stalk_  Joan was not how he wanted to let his old partner know he was back in town.

Joan . . . God.

Joan will not be happy.

* * *

He doesn't know what he expected when he came back, but her reaction wasn't it.

Joan wanted nothing to do with him. Nothing at all - no friendship, no partnership, no  _anything_.

She's angry, and doesn't want to talk.

That, at least, is understandable. Sherlock deserves that - he hurt her. Badly. And Kitty hardly helped.

But cutting him out entirely? Isn't that exactly what he went to London to avoid? He'd figured that if he ran away, he wouldn't have to deal with the way she'd slowly slip by, out of his life, trickle by trickle. And now it appears he may have lost her entirely.

So, he decides to follow her, to remind her of how well they work together, to force Joan to interact with him again. What else is there to do?

She, on her part, looks incredible. She's glowing with success and joy in what she does, and she's one of the many beloved at the station. She has taken over the role of consulting detective so well he can scarcely believe there was ever a time in which  _he_  had to train  _her_.

Joan doesn't need his partnership.

But he needs his best friend.

Of course, he's Sherlock Holmes, and he would rather pull out his teeth than admit that he was miserable without her. Instead, he informs her that he's in a better place, that he is responsible and has a pupil, because the genius figures she would want to hear that. She'd want to know that his disappearance was for the best, and now he is in a much healthier position to resume his life in New York.

Joan, surprisingly, treats that information with a grain of salt, taking it in with a weary exhaustion, as if he was leaving all over again. Internally, he frowns, but he says nothing. The detective sticks to the plan, and sure enough, they are making progress, no matter how much his companion would like to punch him.

When he gets home, though, he seeks out the only other girl he can talk to freely.

"Kitty, why do you think she's upset?" he asked, and she peaks her head out of her new room.

"I thought you were still mad at me," his student remarked, biting her lip. She felt bad, deep down, he must assume.

"I am, but you are, fortunately for me, female." There was little arguing with that logic. She gestured for him to go on. "So, I saw Joan today."

 _That._  That gets her attention in five seconds flat.

"And?"

"It was . . . she's still mad. That's fine. But we were talking and I told her about London. I said that I found new employment, I saw my old flat, I started teaching you, and that I wasn't so . . . clingy, anymore. I wouldn't be so dependent on her as a person. But after all that, she got upset, and I have no idea why. Kitty, just . . ." He hated not understanding things. This was torture. "I don't get it. Did I do something wrong?" The teenage girl stood in the doorway of her room for a long, long time.

" . . . You're joking, right?" she finally pressed, blinking. "Like, you didn't really say that to her, right?" He opened his mouth, then closed it.

She was  _this_  close to slapping him, he believed.

"Unbelievable," she said, facial expressions bordering on incredulous. "For a genius, you can be an absolute moron, you know that?" He attempted not to stamp him foot like an impatient child.

" _What did I do_?"

"You told her you didn't need her, you didn't need New York, and that your friendship was all just business and reliance. You told Joan you replaced her and that she was just an emotional crutch in your epic time of need."

Oh.

_Oh._

"I didn't mean that at all," he murmured, running a hand through his cropped hair. "God, I need to -"

"You honestly don't think she'll realize you didn't come to your senses on your own, right? Because she's a woman who's reasonably smart, from what I've observed." She scowled. " _Observed_. Great. But in any case, she'll think someone's forcing you to say sorry because you're an ass. And she would only be half-wrong." Kitty shuts the door without another word.

Sherlock dreams about the many, many ways he would change things, starting with simply  _not_  leaving in the first place.

* * *

Kitty is sulky and acting like an angsty teenage girl.

Yes, he used the word angsty. Sadly, spending so much time with her has caused him to broaden his vocabulary towards the most nonsensical of words.

She acts like a child around Joan because she got in trouble following his old partner. It's petty and contrived, but she's young, and he'll take it with a grain of salt and move on. Joan, however, seems to think Kitty just doesn't like her.

This, of course, is absurd. Kitty has been enamored by stories of their partnership for months. She's a little jealous, and a little in awe, and a little guilty that she tried to down her mentor's best friend with single stick.

But, you know. In any event, it looked as though it would be a while before the two got along.

"A child needs both of its parents," he tells the other detective. His old partner rolls her eyes.

She is certainly not Kitty's  _parent_ , Joan assures him, nor his keeper. She puts great emphasis on her lack of responsibility concerning the issue.

Well, Watson isn't part of this, is she? They're working together once more, he supposes, but that never meant she had to like it.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid_. He's the dumbest genius to ever roam the earth.

But then, miraculously, Kitty is looking into therapy groups for her traumas and Joan is watching over her with a protective eye, the teenager securely under her wing. Somehow, sometime when he wasn't paying attention, it seemed as though they made their peace.

Even in his dreams, he can't quite locate the common link. Sherlock must simply learn to be grateful that it happened.

* * *

Andrew is . . .

Well. He was reasonably clever, objectively attractive, possessed an amiable nature, and was generally good for Joan. He was normal, but not boring. Steady, but not predictable. And, to top it off, he was clearly crazy about Watson.

Andrew is perfect for her, on paper. Even the genius has a grudging respect for the man; hell, he might even go so far as to say he liked him. Andrew was a definite improvement from Mycroft.

Sherlock really should be happier about this development. He should. If not for himself, than for Joan, who was rather comfortable with her boyfriend.

The detective passes his snappiness off as protective instincts. He doesn't quite know what to call them, though.

At night, he dreams about a Joan that is single and a world without Andrew. When he awakes, everything is the same as always, and her relationship remains a reality.

* * *

They are a group again, he thinks.

This is the closest to a functional family he's ever had, and it's an absolute mess. Every single day is a new murder and a new conflict and a new squabble to be had. Kitty is Kitty, as per usual, and Joan is exasperated by his pompous airs during the few times a case he displays them. Their trust is being re-forged on the buried ashes of months ago, and though it's slow going, it is potent.

The three of them, with the addition of the department itself, are a wreck of epic proportions. But they are making it work, strengthening their resolves bit by bit, and each new dream gives him hope that one day there will be no 'before London' and 'after'. There will simply be good days and bad days, wealths of work and droughts, and the weeks will blur into a continuous stream in which all will be forgiven.

One day, this will be ancient history. Until then there is progress.

* * *

They argue, as they often do nowadays. Joan believes he doesn't like her boyfriend, while this couldn't be farther from the truth.

Sherlock Holmes is actually feeling something akin to jealously. Joan spends time with him, her friend with problems as far as the eye can see, during work and cases and because it's part of her job. Andrew gets all the moments in between, moments he used to be a part of because she wanted him to be there, too.

Of course, that was before London, wasn't it?

And whose fault was that?

He tells her, rather insistently, that he approves of Andrew and only wants her to be happy, as they yell at eachother in the kitchen. Her eyes go wide, and for a fleeting minute, her anger is subdued.

"I kind of want to hug you right now," she finally says, eyes slightly glossed over.

He rebuffs her, of course. He doesn't know how to handle human contact any more than he knows how to deal with small children or idiots (which, honestly, tend to be one in the same). However, in the dark underbelly of the night, the genius allows himself that one comfort and wishes he weren't who he was.

* * *

Kitty has faced her tormentors and fled the city.

He will miss her far more than he thought possible. When on earth did the great Sherlock Holmes become so soft?

Maybe it isn't so strange, though. She was the closest to a daughter he'll probably ever get to know.

Still, as he wonders about where his young pupil is, what she's doing, if she's alright, and how she is getting by, he has to restrain himself from tracking her down or crying, as silly as it sounds. Even while asleep.

* * *

Andrew is dead.

Joan is blaming herself and going insane, slipping into a thick, cutting, agonizing depression.

Sherlock has been there before. He wishes, more than anything, that he could ease her pain.

She is a good person, as was Andrew. Neither of them deserved this.

His dreams are slightly more tolerable. In his dreams, she isn't hurting so badly.

* * *

When she asked to move back in, at first he thought he was still asleep. He had never imagined that Joan would want to come back to the Brownstone, and certainly not under such extenuating circumstances, but he supposed it made sense. Soon her suitable apartment was sold and gone and her things were back upstairs.

Sherlock loves that she's back. He can better take care of her while she's living under the same roof.

However, he wishes that she had returned home under better circumstances.

One day, he realizes with a start that Joan has given up on being normal. It wasn't exactly a hard decision to arrive at. She's not talking about regular things, like appointments and her friends and shopping and groceries, or any of the mundane topics she'd slip into their conversations. Now it is only about the extravagant, such as new lock-picking techniques, interesting cold cases, or curious product sales around the city. His partner is simply sick of trying and trying to fit in, to live simply, when everything resembling sanity that she works so hard to build up keeps getting snatched away. After all, Andrew was gone, and while they weren't the perfect couple, they were close. He adored Joan, and he had made her feel better than 'special'; he had made her feel regular, worthy of a functional relationship with someone who loved her.

And now he was gone, and so was that sentiment.

When Sherlock sees his partner, curled up in his living room again, pouring over files and cryptogram novels, the detective does something he's never done before.

The genius leans over and holds her hand, running a reassuring thumb over her knuckles.

"Joan, you can be upset. You can be angry. But don't just throw in the towel, or whatever that saying is," the detective tells her, scooting himself forwards to better look her in the eyes. "We're here for you. No matter what."

It takes a while, but she comes around.

She nods, once, and shakes her head, trying to clear it of the imposing numbness. With a shaky breath, she closes the book and folds the papers neatly back into the manila envelope.

"What's the point of it all? I see my friends, my mom, and it's like . . ." she sighs, running her free hand through her hair. "They're all waiting for me to fall apart and start crying. But I . . . I want to, sometimes, but . . ." She's struggling with the words, he can tell. "I'm not like them. Not anymore. I just want to stop feeling  _useless_ , but they all think I'm going to huddle in a ball and melt. I can't  _breathe_  while they stare and wonder when I'll break down. I need to do something, something that makes a difference, or else I'll think about everything I've lost with Andrew and then . . . . I don't know. I haven't gotten that far."

"Cryptology isn't the answer," he says idly, taking everything in. "And neither are unsolved mysteries."

"They're something other than me crying in my room," the woman mumbles, casting her gaze to his fingers, still stroking hers. "You probably didn't want to hear about this."

"Of course I did. You've heard all of my worst sob-stories, it's only fair that you would reciprocate." Silence coats the room, thick and languid, though not uncomfortable. Just serious and profound.

"Thank you," she replies after another long while.

"There's nothing to be thankful for, Watson."

The next day, she still remains at the Brownstone, flitting about with little to do. He has no qualms about distracting her.

However, the day afterwards, she goes to a lunch with her brother. When she comes back, everything about her, from the way she walks to her eyes to her stance, is inexplicably lighter.

Sherlock dreams about brushing spirals into her skin for many occasions to come. He likes to think some of that lightness had been due to him, for once.

* * *

They both had passed out in the living room. Joan, as they were sitting next to eachother, had obviously fallen onto his shoulder. Her usually impeccable attire was wrinkled, her blouse starting to slide up her stomach, and he snorted with amusement before he could stop himself. Joan Watson, not put together? What an impossible thought.

Her head rested precariously on his shoulder, threatening to drop into his lap at any second, and her hair was spilling out of its careful bun.

She was warm. Really, really warm. And quite comfortable, surprisingly. Though he usually did his best to avoid other human contact at all time, this he did not mind.

Why? Why was Watson always the exception?

Regrettably, before he could find a suitable answer, his comrade awoke, dazed and confused and very hungry.

He tries not to dream about it, but it replays on loop for weeks.

* * *

When they receive an unmarked letter in the mail, vague in detail and simple in scrawl, Sherlock nearly weeps in relief.

At the very end of the odd note, after all, is a distinctive 'K', and Watson cannot help but smile despite everything that has happened.

"Kitty's going to be okay, isn't she?" she smirks, shaking her head.

"With us as her guides? How could she not be?" the genius tells her.

They're still recovering, the both of them, but it's the little things like these that give them hope.

* * *

He thinks of Irene in the moments when Joan is not watching.

It's endless torture.

He hates Moriarty with every fiber of his being, but he'll never be rid of her ghost, it seems.

He dreams, briefly, about decidedly-not-Irene Adler's shoulders. Most men would say her best features were her delicate, slender hands, or her long-lashed eyes, or even her ever-curling lips. Sherlock's always loved her shoulders.

His own skin was inked over with swirling lines, but her shoulders were pale and blank and yet full of secrets. The hunch of her body revealed her resolve, the straightening of shoulders was her perseverance spelled out in movements. They gave her away, every time, and they were endlessly interesting despite their lack of decoration.

The only things on her shoulders were freckles like stars, lined out in chains on a creamy morning sky. He would trace these constellations, making moonbeams out of the circles on her skin and galaxies out of dots. It was, quite possibly, the most fascinating pastime he'd ever experienced.

During one of those impossibly perfect nights, when he hadn't know that Irene was an illusion, he traces over her shoulders again with sleepy fingers, labeling the planets and stars.

Then, suddenly, it's not Irene but Joan lying next to him. She's on her side, wearing her traditional pajama choice of a t shirt and shorts, and she's snoring lightly, the sun pouring in through gossamer curtains. There is a gentle silence, and he is drawing swirls on her arm, pressing designs into her skin as though he was trying to imprint them.

Sherlock pulls away, as he often does in situations like this, and though not-Joan shifts in her sleep, lips twitching downwards as if some small part of her notices his withdraw, she doesn't wake. He stills, waiting for her to open her eyes and see him, laying next to her in a bed that is clearly not his own.

Seconds fly by, and then minutes. There is nothing indicating that his subconscious manifestation of Joan is going to rouse anytime soon.

Finally, he resolves to relax again, shifting his thoughts from the tension of discovery to a more simplistic question of 'why'. Why he would imagine up Joan like this, why he's there with her in the first place, why he felt the need to make swirls on her arms.

She moves, slightly, head ducking a little farther forwards. Hair falls into her face, as he's observed many a time during their mornings in the Brownstone. Normally, he would ignore this. In this instance, though, his hand develops a mind of its own, reaching out and swiping the strands back behind her ear.

This, unfortunately, is what cinches it.

His partner delicately shudders, waking up in a minuscule jolt, and she groggily opens her eyes.

Ah. So  _this_  is when the panicked freezing should have occurred.

"Sherlock?" she asks quietly, rubbing one of her eyes and fighting back a yawn.

"Joan," he responds, as he has no idea what to do. The genius is very, very relieved he hasn't shared this experience with Joan outside of the dreamscape yet, as it would have been rather deprecating on the status of their relationship, though this gap of information leaves him somewhat defenseless now.

"Mmm, it's past dawn for once. You slept in," Joan mutters, instead of the proper scolding he most certainly must deserve. She moves closer, pressing her head against his chest and pulling his arm around her again. "Ten more minutes, though, okay? Then I'll get up." Dumbly he nods, and after a grand total of one hundred and forty seven seconds - he timed it, and took careful note of her relaxed heart rate and surprising ease with the situation - she is out cold again.

Joan's a warm, welcome weight though, and as he looks down at her sleeping form, tucked next to him like a human puzzle piece, he finds himself content.

Sherlock cannot remember the last time he was content. He thinks it might have been with Irene, but the drugs made it harder to remember the fine details. They continue to make everything blur at the corners.

Still, she is Watson, and he resolves to continue drawing lazy squiggles across her skin since there is nothing else to be done. They loop and twist and curl together, and if the colors leaked had from his imagination onto her limb she would be a vision of ink.

Eventually, he too falls victim to slumber again, and he tightens his grip on her as he goes under.

Sherlock reawakens in his home, within his own bed.

Joan is nowhere to be found.

For once, he wishes he was still sleeping.

* * *

Very little made him truly happy, but Joan? She made him  _himself_. She brought him back to life.

Sherlock tries to do the same for her, and little by little, and then maybe all at once, he began to drag her back.

The sky is blue, murders occur, and Joan is better. She's slightly fragile, slightly saddened, but they're working through that. She sees friends, goes to awful movies, visits bookstores, and does other common activities. She's reverting into peace and contentment again, despite the looming thoughts about her boyfriend's death.

She is Joan once more, or very nearly, and she's  _wonderful._

Damn, how he's missed her.

* * *

She's in the Brownstone, not doing anything particularly special. Joan Watson is cracking open an egg, one of two, and dropping it unceremoniously into a pan. He's brewed coffee and is listening to her discuss a novel that she's read, in her rare spare time, while she sprinkles salt absentmindedly onto their breakfast. He sips the freshly made caffeinated beverage, nodding at her story in the right places, and observing how she stands on her tip-toes to reach the top shelf of the cabinets.

"Do you require assistance, Watson?" he questions, and with a small huff she grabs something. It was jam, apparently, and it was unopened, sitting out of reach mostly because he'd forgotten it was there.

"Not now, Sherlock," she sighs, pulling toast out of the toaster. He assumes the 'not now' refers to his constant shows of self importance - she's not exactly wrong to say that. "Strawberry jam?"

"Please," the genius replies, finally getting up and pulling two plates out of the cupboard. He hands them to her and she places them down next to the stove. "More coffee?"

"Of course." She flips her egg, mumbling something about it not being done enough for her tastes on top, and she slides them both onto their respective plates. It is when he has finished pouring and she has commenced with the buttering and jam-applicating that his partner looks away from what she is doing, gazing instead at him.

Joan has the oddest way of looking through him. She sees his thoughts and his emotional state and his worries just by taking in his face.

"You're smiling. You seem really happy," she finally says, putting the toast with his food. "Any reason why?"

Sherlock hadn't noticed he was grinning at all.

"None," he answers, because that is safe, and he sits next to her and eats. Comfortable silence lulls into the room, and he watches Joan all the while.

She's very pretty, isn't she? Even when she's doing nothing at all.

He dreams about that. He dreams about infinite mornings with infinite breakfasts and wonders when Joan became so integral.

* * *

At night, he visualizes the rainy, billowing streets of New York, caught in a torrential downpour. He and Watson had to leave for a case and she was shifting her shoulders beneath her coat, frowning from the damp and the cold already. Her ponytail was caught by a scarf, half in and half out, and her umbrella was shaking against the wind.

He had fleetingly thought, back when they had first made this memory only a few days ago, that he could kiss her and perhaps she wouldn't mind. She was standing right there, very nearby, and she was very distraught by the weather as it was.

At the time, he had suppressed that traitorous notion and packed it away, instead only muttering a faint 'after you, Watson.'

Not now.

Now, in the confines of his own brain, he leans forward and closes the space between them. Lips meet lips, eyes meet eyes.

It is electric.

She's pressing back, smiling, moving, and so is he, suddenly dizzy and tingling and going completely blank for the first time in his life. There's no up or down or rain or sun or even a silly, flimsy umbrella; there is only him, and Joan, and the impossibly warm, fond feeling in the pit of his stomach. There's only this, forever, on repeat.

His kiss with her is the most amazing, world-shaking kiss he's ever had.

The worst part is that it isn't real.

* * *

He's not in love with Joan Watson.

He's not.

He's not falling in love with the way she complains about his interruptions or how she walks like she doesn't care who dares to get in her way or the fact that she likes sleeping in until noon on weekends.

He's not. He tells his brain and his heart and the two of them combined that it just wasn't happening.

(But that's not true, isn't it? He was a goner for days and months and years, for as long as he's known her, because Joan Watson was incredible.

And please, a fall? He's already experienced the Reichenbach. No, it was a series of subtle crashes onto the pavement, a stroll around the block, and a head-on collision with a moving truck. Sherlock's a mess, though, and surely 'falling in love', however the Holmes seem to do it, would be no different.)

* * *

She smiles at him, rather often, and sometimes he wonders if she feels the same.

His subconscious romanticizes the notion all too often. It's an incredible distraction.

Like now, for instance, when he is speaking and she's next to him, placing a hand on his arm as a silent show of support during a meeting at the bureau. Their chairs are closely positioned together, nearly touching, and Joan glances at him sideways, ready to jump in if he needs a backup opinion.

It's nothing out of the ordinary. It's nothing new. But he's become hyper-aware of every little thing she does recently and now  _everything_  about his partner seems special.

Then he wakes up with Joan inches away, shaking him back into reality.

"I let you sleep for a while because you needed the rest, but it's been eight hours and I think I've made a breakthrough," she says, clutching a stack of pictures closely. "See this man? He's the personal assistant of our lead, but he's also been sighted just outside the other crime scenes. Here, he's dressed as a cleaner, but he's the right height, hair type, and build, and once we run these pictures through and set a lookout for this guy I think we'll be able to verify this theory and stage an arrest." Sherlock blinks slowly, taking the photos. He must admit, there is a striking resemblance.

"Good work as always, Watson," he replies, scrubbing a hand over his face. "It's morning?"

"Yeah, I've been up all night."

"Alright. I'll make pancakes," the consultant responds, getting up out of the chair he had slumped in and venturing into the kitchen.

"Don't you want to jump on this as soon as possible? It's not like you to leave something as important as this unattended." He snorted, already pulling things out of the cabinets.

"You've been up for nearly two days straight, Joan, and I know how much you hate staying up. The least I can do is make you pancakes before I go catch a serial killer."

"No, I'm fine. I can go, too, just let me get my - "

" - Pajamas on and go to bed, Joan. You need to sleep." She scrutinized him, eyes narrowed, before sighing and walking back up the stairs.

By the time he was nearing completion, she arrived back on the main floor, clad in sweatpants that were far too baggy and a t shirt that was at least a decade old.

"Thank you," she tells him, squeezing his arm.

"Thanks for letting me," he eventually combats her with. Being with Joan is much like breathing, for him - he's lucky to be here with her at all.

He sleeps, again, after the murderer is behind bars and he comes back to the Brownstone. Joan had waited up for him, knowing that she was too tired to be of much use in the field but wanting to be there, lucid, when he returned. He recounted the not-too-thrilling encounter of cornering the killer while he was in the public restroom, which made Joan smirk if nothing else, and they ambled away half an hour before Joan nodded off, right there on the couch.

He pulls a spare blanket over top her shoulders, watching it slip down twice before wisening up and tucking it beneath her chin. Sherlock then passes out on the chair adjacent to hers, so as to make sure she was alright before he fell asleep.

Nothing happens. He's adrift again.

He recounts the day, and it is all the same save for a few details.

When Joan says thank you, she hugs him from behind, and when she eventually goes to sleep, she does so in his bed as he doddles invisible designs on her arms.

He wonders, rather often, if she dreams the same dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's finally some domestic randomness, guys.  
>  . . . I kinda don't know what else to say. They have the potential to be really freaking adorable, alright?   
> Anyways, have a good day, the next update should be out in a month, tops. Be on the lookout!


	4. Thus A Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The people on fanfiction.net have been left hanging on this installment for forever. It's truly terrible how long it's taken me to finish out this document but by setting a goal for myself here I finally pushed myself to hurry up. 
> 
> Of course, it distracted me from Elementary, My Dear Rosie so that will be hanging out for the next week, but I'll apologize for that later. For now I'm just so happy that it's over because I was so sick of just not posting anything new. 
> 
> I do things. Just super disjointedly. 
> 
> . . . I should fix that. 
> 
> About the next part: it's a lot of fluff. It's about 99.9999% pure fluff for the sake of fluff. Joan and Sherlock have suffered enough as it is by season three, and I think that in my fictitious world they deserve a bit of a break. Their transition from friends to more isn't necessarily easy - when are things ever easy and clear-cut for them, I would ask you - but it is my take on 'them'. I attempted to fill it out and make the jump as seamless and relatively believable as I could in the amount of words and time I was given, so I hope everyone will strap in tight and enjoy the final chapter!

Joan had yet to notice the few shifts in his regular behavior, despite being with him nearly constantly. This was a direct result of his incredible abilities of discretion and self-awareness, which he so rarely got the chance to utilize.

Whenever he began staring, pondering the curve of her neck or the cut of her hair, as all idle romantics do unwittingly, he reminded himself to glance away at stationary objects every five seconds, or to only train his gaze on his partner when she was thoroughly distracted or positioned at the outskirts of his peripheral vision. Thus the detective never caught him looking, and hardly suspected him of doing so in the first place.

If he brushed against her fingertips more whilst passing plates at breakfast or handing over texts during cases, he made certain that they occupied less time. Concentration of touch was inversely related to number of moments in contact, so if he decreased one the other would increase, as humans possessed a very mathematical concept of platonic interaction. In the end, even basic skin-to-skin interaction boiled down to numbers perceived, and his were always mentally calculated to be almost unnoticeable. This was rapid deduction at its finest.

And on the off chance he found himself smiling uncontrollably, no reason behind it at all, that too could be masked by excuses. He dreamt of old memories and daydreams every night; he had a veritable plethora of experiences to pretend to have reminisced over, to feign happiness with. Joan need not be informed that his odd bouts of fondness were due entirely to her.

In these ways and countless others Sherlock Holmes managed to conceal his unfortunate infatuation with his best friend and colleague in the same swoop he misled criminals with: basic misdirection.

Sherlock had just came to terms with the fact that he, a creature of solitude and serious issues, desired something more than just a crime to unravel. The genius wanted sleepy mornings, joint researches, idiotic squabbles in the kitchen. He wanted affection, understanding, and trust, something to take with through life. He wanted his partner to be his partner in every aspect, which was an unusual longing that simply hadn't cropped up since Irene (Moriarty, his brain always supplies, and since his revelation with Joan it seems so much easier to correct the term) had died and he decided love was not for a man like himself. But, as he was so often reminding himself, Joan was the exception in every conceivable way. She could tear him apart like no one else.

Watson was one of a kind. This, among so many other reasons, was why he didn't deserve her.

This, among so many other reasons, was why he wanted her anyways.

Yet the genius would not be able to let go of his fellow consulting detective again. He would crumple in on himself without her, which was exactly why he could not simply grab her and go bleeding hearts.

Being in love with Joan Watson and not being able to do anything about it was absolute hell, but loosing her entirely would be so much worse. So he would continue to play the role of the ornery and illusive intelligencer, ever the thespian, and privately wonder whether or not Joan would ever feel the same.

* * *

After the sudden realization that he was infatuated with Joan, one would naturally assume that things got easier. He would be able to make sense of past jealousies and angers, given this new light, and so many things would become less confusing.

This would be one's natural conclusion. And, despite its nearly flawless rationale, that assumption would be wrong.

Sherlock had no idea just how complex and romantically frustrating being in love with someone so close to his heart could be.

To take a prime example, there was today, in which the two detectives were transferred in an armored police vehicle with the rest of the precinct squadrant as they chased a serial killer down on wheels. Due to the impossibly cramped quarters and the constant jostling of the truck whilst in pursuit, during which they drove over a truly staggering number of potholes, Joan inevitably ended up in his lap. This was far preferable to holding Bell, as he was on Sherlock's other side and it really could have gone either way, he must acknowledge. However, having her on top of him, tightly gripping his arms which had secured her waist, black hair escaping her ponytail and smelling of jasmine, hardly helped his sanity. It was a tense three minutes of professional torture in which he had to both hold her as close as possible to avoid any unfortunate slams against the walls and maintain a blank, impassive demeanor about the matter, as if this wouldn't be one of the events he'd dream about for nights to come.

And last week, when he had finally dropped asleep next to the dining table and she had been the first thing he saw, gently smoothing a hand over his shoulder blades and providing a strong cup of coffee. She had smiled, the sunlight illuminating the careful divets between her dark lashes, and began talking about what they were going to do that day and old unsolved mysteries she had read about and just about anything she thought he might find interesting. It was so pleasant, just like a normal morning he might alter in his mindscape, that he nearly forgot the difference between night visions and reality. The genius was leaning forward to knit her fingers with his, almost subconsciously, when he remembered exactly where he was and why this was not allowed. So he diverted his trajectory towards the caffeinated beverage and sipped as she spoke, nodding in all the right places and trying not to be so pathetic. Holmes did not pine like lost puppies. They went after what they wanted, who they needed.

But he could not. And so Sherlock suffered.

Last month, too, was terrible. They went grocery shopping, as even the great intellectuals of our time have nutritional needs to be met, and as they approached the entirely too long line for the register, Joan's phone rang furiously. For once, it was from one of her relatives as opposed to the station. Her mother's car had broken down and the older woman desperately needed a ride lest she lose some doctor's appointment she had scheduled, or something to that general effect, and Joan had winced and hung up, asking if he could handle checking out on his own.

Sherlock answered with an immediate yes, of course. He was a grown adult and was more than capable of covering the perils of buying discount milk and bread without supervision and he told her just that. Though she had invaded every other aspect of his existence,  _grocery shopping_  was a task he could accomplish by himself. Joan, at the time, had sighed with relief and thanked him far too profoundly for remaining to scan their purchases, leaving the store to go pick up her parent. The detective, for his part, watched her leave, mentally following every single step until she had passed through the doors again.

"It's nice to see that chivalry isn't entirely dead," the woman behind him had said kindly, jarring him from his thoughts. From one look it was evident that she had been married for a substantial period of time, around forty years, and would soon be approaching her late seventies. She enjoyed the relics of an older, more sophisticated era, such as classical jazz and modest clothing. Her hands were grass stained and wrinkled, meaning she had been an avid gardener who loved the outdoors, and based on the foreign cut of her jacket and the style of footwear she had selected, she had traveled often in her youth and remembered the experience fondly. The typical older citizen.

"Oh?" he had replied, assuming that she, as most people her age did, would lose interest in needless conversation quickly. However, she smiled and nodded instead.

"Well, not many husbands nowadays would have the patience to sit in a tedious line at a convenience store just to help their wives with family matters. Young men in these times, they always want things done instantly. I like taking note of the rare exceptions," she responded, pushing around her sparsely filled cart. Most of the space was occupied with marked down tissue boxes. "Keep it up and I'm sure you'll be together for the long run." She winked, then. "She's beautiful, by the way."

Sherlock should have corrected her, right then and there. He could have ignored her, or laughed it off, or even rattled off his many deductions in an attempt to force the stranger to back off. Instead, he found himself agreeing.

"That she is." As he checked out, bundling up a truly ridiculous amount of plastic bags without Joan's vehicle to load them into and with nearly twenty blocks to walk, he had begun to grin.

This was so out of character for him. Watson made him do unbelievably stupid things, things he would never usually do, even when she wasn't there in the flesh.

All of this, all of these instances, marked trouble for the detective. What was possibly most troubling about this was, other than a fierce conviction not to ruin their carefully reconstructed bond, he could not find a single thing that he could necessarily complain about.

He dreams about all of it, about what it would mean, and pondered over whether or not the pratfall was approaching yet. And then his thoughts devolved to those of him and her, working old cases, and he cannot be arsed to care anymore.

* * *

It's rather rare that Sherlock Holmes finds himself in a situation that renders him helpless, but there he was, tied to a very sturdy lead pipe, feet and hands bound, in a room so absolutely dark he cannot begin to glimpse the world around him. In addition to three layers of very tightly wound ropes, there was a pair of strong meal wires wrapped around his wrists, complete with a padlock.

Yes, a padlock of all things. Which, of course, he cannot make out the printed combination on, given the lack of light.

Sherlock was rather split on this issue. He didn't know whether to be proud of this criminal for finally providing someone who kidnapped him with some semblance of efficiency for once or progressively more concerned about the rapidly decreasing odds of achieving freedom again. It's a rather close match, and the jury is still out over which side of the issue is most pressing.

However, this isn't to say that he was completely helpless. His ankles, though the process had chaffed horribly, had escaped their confines and were now resting on the floor, his toes groping around blindly for anything that might be of use. Of course, he already had a good idea of where he was, geographically speaking. With the occasional rumbling of an unidentified machine somewhere behind him, most likely a boiler, and the faint rush of water through pipes that could only be lead, it was obvious that he was located in the basement of an older building, probably kept in the very back corner of an ancient mechanical room. The amount of water being pumped through despite the dusty and presumably unchecked electrical and heating faculties suggested that his band of kidnappers stored up here purely due to remoteness and convenience. This furthered the possibility that the place where he resided was in fact a house, relatively large but set away from the city, unassuming due to age yet close enough to the city to be a useful hideout. However, their lack of actual prep work suggested it wasn't a central base, merely a transitional point, and therefore people must filter in and out only at their own necessity. As previously stated, close but not too close. It couldn't be more than an hour from New York proper, and any less than thirty minutes would compromise the other essentials of his theory. Since, though he had been rendered unconscious throughout the journey, no smells of the sea lingered on his clothing, a boat ride had not been part of the experience. The lower east side of Long Island, then, most likely. Wantagh fit the bill, as it matched up more-or-less with location and was a veritable hamlet, remote enough to justify its own means. The outskirts of Elmont, too, might do the trick. Mineola might also work, but he was less fond of that theory. No, the edges of Wantagh were probably his best assumption at a location.

This, of course, would make little difference if he couldn't unlock the idiotic clasp around his wrists, but without light to see the actual keys on the insipid lock (he hadn't the foggiest whether they were symbols, numbers, letters, or a combination of the possible three; attempting to deduce the answer with absolutely nothing to go on or feel out would be a waste of time, unless the divine power of luck happened to intervene) or any solid information to go off of, the padlock would have to simply remain put for now. It had been an interesting day, a riveting chase, and things had not gone so well for Sherlock, but at least it was better than staying at home, bored off his seat. No one likes being taken hostage, but at least it staved off the boredom of being  _ordinary_ , which as a state of perpetual existence was admittedly far worse.

He had just given up on search the floor for aid - there was little else but dust, anyhow - and had begun to work his way out of the initial strands of rope when a fierce banging on the door arose. Or, at least, what he had to assume was a door; he was tucked around a corner in a dark mechanical, after all, and couldn't make out a thing from his position. Still, the genius tensed and made quick work of another knot, feeling a pang of pleasure as he nimbly pulled apart the strand with only his feet and without the advantage of sight. His endless practices had paid off.

The noise was increasing in its volume, filling the pitch black with a nearly rhythmic series of thuds. It couldn't be a rescue, could it? By his rough estimation, taking into account his possible abduction time and the elapsed minutes in the basement, it had been only somewhere between five and eight hours. And, given the general inefficiency of local authorities, there was no way they could logically deduce the route of transport like he could.

And then the room flooded with bright yellow, sending the glimmers of gossamer strings of light his way. From around the bend they cast sharp shadows upon the floor, and never before had fluorescent lighting seemed so welcoming.

"Sherlock!" she called, a gun held out in front of her as she walked through the basement, and just the sound of her voice was enough to know.

Of course. How else would he have been located so quickly?

"Here, Joan," he replied weakly, trying not to laugh in relief. She quickly came, briefly checking for further hostiles, of which there were obviously none remaining, and she slid away her gun, looking him over.

"Are you hurt? How are you feeling?" his partner said, quickly patting him down for any immediate sign of blood or broken bones. Her eyes darted over his features, at first simply checking for bruises or scrapes and then catching his gaze. "You're here."

"I'm alive," he nodded, and it felt as if that moment weighed so much more than that of two people, completely unattached. He couldn't stop  _staring_ , relieved that she was there at all. " . . . Could you possibly -"

"Yes, of course," the black haired woman answered immediately, pulling off his leftover tie and glancing over the lock. In seconds, she had the combination and was pulling his hands free.

"How did you . . ."

"It was written in silver sharpie on the back," she shrugged, hefting him upwards. "My brother sometimes did that. Nobody ever looks there, it's a guarantee that you'll never loose the number, and it's not like any hostages could make out anything in the dark." These were good points. Still idiotic, had he been able to see, but good.

"Thank you, Joan," he told her, rubbing his wrists to improve circulation. "Truly." She shook her head.

"Please don't thank me. We let you down."

_. . . What?_

"Joan, you've never let me down."

"You got kidnapped because you went in first and I took too long to get there. It should have been me," Joan sighed, rubbing her temples. "I didn't - I messed up and -"

"You found me, didn't you? And rather quickly, I have to admit," the genius reassured, and though he usually never did, he knew that she needed him. He hugged her, pulling arms around her shorter form, and though she tensed initially she quickly melted into his side. When Sherlock Holmes decides to embrace someone, you might as well enjoy it in its entirety while it lasts.

"Sherlock, I was scared out of my mind," the ex-doctor whispered, the words barely audible. "I didn't even know - the whole  _department_  didn't even know - if you were dead or alive. I didn't think so, I would have  _felt_  something, but -"

"I'm here, Watson," he shushed her, "untied and breathing, because of you. All else is as follows."

"I can't lose you too," she replied, head buried into his rather ragged jacket - it would be going in the laundry as soon as they arrived back at the Brownstone. "I, just, my mom slipping, my dad had been gone, Andrew died and - not you, too." Slowly, gently, he rubbed circles into her back and said nothing, just held his partner and let her come back to normalcy.

After a while, the division finished their work upstairs and came to check on Joan, at which point they discovered something truly incredible: Sherlock Holmes, engaging in physical contact without provocation. At the insistence of Gregson, not a word against them was spoken. They deserved some peace.

As they arrived back, it was as if nothing had changed. The world circled on, the sun set as always, and the tea was prepared and dinner eaten over the great oaken table. Throughout it all, scarcely a word was spoken. And then, out of the careful quiet, the silent relief of Joan simply grateful that her impossible partner was alive, came a voice.

"You're all I have, too," he told her, squeezing her hand over the ancient wood. She, surprised once more, could not help but stare at his fingers as though something strange and yet eerily familiar had occurred. When she turned back to him, her gaze was fixed on everything, as though she was seeing him for the first time all over again. Sherlock was stripped to his fundamentals, letting Joan take in all she cared to see, good and bad, and he tightened his grip.

The genius didn't know what he was expecting. Perhaps a smile, perhaps a nod of agreement - nothing too big, but an understanding made by two people who knew eachother better than anyone else. Instead, Watson looked at him as if he was someone else entirely, someone incredible, awe-inspiring, dependable, and compassionate. Someone worthy of giving her fragile trust to, someone else she had yet to fully meet. Her eyes cut straight to his core and further still, to the deep recesses closed out since Moriarty (he did it automatically, for once - perhaps he is starting to get better after all).

He wanted her to look at him that way all the time, every day. He wanted to  _be_ something miraculous, something worthy of that trust, for her.

Damn, he hoped he could become that.

"Thanks," she breathes suddenly, and she knits her digits through his, returning to the remainder of her food and sagging with the weight of the day. Once and a while she glances at him, as if making sure he is real, and he lets her without complaint. Joan continues to have that spark of  _something other_  in her eyes, and it's distracting in a good way.

When he sleeps, he dreams about her stepping out of the light and freeing him of his chains, and Sherlock thinks self-indulgently that she has saved him in more ways than one.

* * *

They continue to receive notes from Kitty once every month or two, always at random and always relatively short. They never discuss where she is, they never comment on the weather or the task she is performing. Instead, she briefly goes over how she is, physically and mentally, her regular annoyances, her frustration with humanity and her few concerns. For the most part, given the circumstances, they reveal that she is free, and for Kitty that translates to 'more or less happy'. In subtext, deep beneath the words written, she clearly misses them and worries about how they are fairing.

Sherlock would write back, if he could. Alas, he cannot, and he expects that Kitty keeps tabs on them anyways. She is not the kind to develop attachment easily, but when she does, the teenager is impossible to shake.

Joan keeps volunteering at the homeless shelter on weekends for an hour at a time. She figures that there are a lot of people like Kitty Winters in the world who could use a leg up. After a little deliberation, Sherlock finds himself silently slipping in the vehicle's passenger seat one afternoon, buckling in and glancing at her expectantly. His partner is obviously skeptical, as the genius isn't known for his vast philanthropic streak, but she soon finds herself grinning and slowly backing out of the Brownstone.

"Are you sure?" she asks simply once they are there, pulling the keys from the ignition. He shrugs.

"You seem to be," is the consulting detective's only reply, and so they pile out of the car and walk in together, matching step for step.

In her next secretive missive, Kitty mentions that she has taken up a brief volunteer shift at a local soup kitchen. The girl claims that she 'takes after her guardians'.

Joan smiles in  _that_  way, the way that women do when they look so touched they might want to cry but don't want the tears to fall. Sherlock simply smirks, as this is proof that somehow she's watching them anyways.

* * *

Joan isn't kidnapped, she's just . . . away.

It feels like the same thing, though.

Whenever Joan is away from the Brownstone for any extended period of time, it feels like there is something missing. He feels restless, off-balance, irritable and easily distracted. Joan was always excellent at focusing him, to say nothing of all the other services she unknowingly performed for him on a daily basis, and without her around Sherlock is off center.

He  _would_  text her incessantly. He would. But sadly she is going on a brief trip with her brother and her sister-in-law, and it looks as if she's having a great time. She took a few pictures and sent them over to keep him from worrying too badly, but it's hardly a reprieve. His partner is still too far to reach, still away from home, and it is driving him mad.

He has already begged Gregson for a new case to examine, accompanied Bell to a crime scene, been to the morgue twice, and pestered Alfredo for an afternoon. It's barely been three days and he has already exhausted all of his defenses against the forces of boredom and insanity. The woman was only to be gone for a week, so he should be able to tough it out for that long. He was an adult, and he didn't need constant companionship in order to function.

And yet, here he was, glaring at the door for all he was worth, wondering if his fellow detective would magically spring out of it and into the real world.

It's sad, really. There's no other way to put it.

Just as he's about to renounce the world of the living, he hears the familiar ring of his cellphone and pulls it out with undisguised relief. There, as if by a miracle, is the name 'Joan', illuminated on the screen.

"Hello?" he says, the sentences falling out into the empty room and settling in the air.

"Good, you're alive," comes a voice on the other end, warm and familiar. "I was really worried. Honestly, I was expecting a swarm of messages when I turned my phone back on, but nothing. Is anything wrong?"

She knows him too well. Far, far too well for comfort.

"Nothing, nothing, I just didn't want to bother you," he mumbled, acutely aware of her absence even as they spoke. "You seem to be having a good time."

"I mean, I am. It's been great. I'm just used to constantly hearing from you and the radio silence was making me uneasy." She sighed over the line, probably kneading her forehead. "I've kinda gotten used to a torrential downpour of comments on every single thing that happens. I really didn't expect to miss it."

Oh.

 _Oh_.

"Sherlock? Are you dead?" she voiced uncertainly, confused as to where exactly the sudden silence was coming from. "Is someone there?"

"No, I'm alright," he answers, clearing his throat and feeling lighter than he had in days. "I'll make sure to pester you incessantly tomorrow. I requested another case."

"Oh, what's it about?"

"Right now, it's a triple homicide . . ."

He ends the call after a grand three hours, at which point Joan's sister-in-law had told his partner that she was almost done with dinner. He voices his goodbyes, bids them goodnight, and hangs up, thinking that perhaps he will survive another four days of alone-time after all.

* * *

She isn't surprised when Sherlock invades a luncheon with her mother. Perhaps Joan should have been, but he's invaded all other areas of her life thus far, so why should this one have been any different? Sherlock did in fact have contact with Watson's parent on a semi-frequent basis, as he wanted to establish a good relationship with the woman who raised his partner. So yes, crashing a meet-up wasn't as strange as it should have been.

It's unexpected in the broadest sense, but they manage to have a good time. Mrs. Watson is kind and clever and smiles at them in a knowing way across the table as he prattles on and his companion treats him with her usual method of detached yet fond exasperation. She has seen her daughter happy before. She is very well aware of what makes her excited, of what makes her smile, and of what keeps her grounded, and what Sherlock provides happens to do all three. It's as much as any mother can hope their child finds, even if said child hasn't realized what they've unearthed.

It's a pretty nice lunch, actually. Domestic in a loving way. The detective never knew he wanted that.

"That went well," Joan says once they arrive back, removing her coat and smiling. She doesn't mention the fact that he was entirely uninvited, nor does she seem to care.

"Yes, it did," he tells her in response, and the next time she goes so does he.

It becomes routine, just like his dreams, in which her hand always lingers a little too long, her step wavers a little too often, and her breath catches a little too frequently.

* * *

They're at a charity ball, and his cuffs are chaffing and his tie is slightly too tight and one of his socks is slipping down his shoe. Sherlock Holmes, in an immaculate full body suit with footwear that is actually formal and hair that is actually combed, was miserable since they got there, despite his polished appearance. Him and Joan had gone to the event solely because it was also honoring the precinct and several people whose lives had been personally saved due to their department had come as a show of thanks. Had it not been for the obvious disapproval of his superiors, he would have cut and run hours ago.

He crossed his legs with a sigh at one of the tables in the back, where he had been remaining in solitude ever since Joan got pulled away by a coworker nearly forty minutes prior. His sock stubbornly fell another centimeter and he resisted the urge to fling his pointed contraptions across the room, tearing the sock neatly in two afterwards. Surely Gregson would understand.

He's about to do just that, actually, when his partner taps him on the shoulder, smiling brightly. It appears that through the merciful powers of divine intervention she'd been released from her lapse through the ballroom. Sock-based revenge can wait.

"Have you been here the whole time?" she asks, smirking slightly and acting utterly unsurprised.

"I'm not completely inept at social gatherings, Watson. People do vie for my attention now and again, I'll have you know," he responds instantly as he stands, knowing full well that she sees straight through the lie. With him, it's less about the belief and more about the facade of saving face - around her, it hardly matters.

"Well I think I've had about enough of this for the night. Let's get up and dance one last time and we'll head back home, alright?" she says, grabbing his hand and tugging him forwards slightly. "Frankly I've only waltzed with a couple of guys from the department and half of them stepped on my feet. And if I was swayed in circles by the man I talked to twice this year who works at the desk on the corner, a man I don't even know the name of, I am at least going to dance with my partner before I go."

"Watson, my sock is escaping my foot, my tie is strangling me, my jacket is far too hot, and I haven't  _waltzed_  all night." Joan's eyes go wide.

"You didn't dance at all? At a  _charity ball_ , Sherlock?" He shrugs helplessly.

"Isn't that the point of scowling in the back at an abandoned table? To avoid all the other people?"

"You're unbelievable," his companion sighs, and with another deft pull she sets his hands on her waist and slips her arms around his shoulders. "Here. I'm not 'other people' and now it doesn't look like you're about to strangle a family in the corner." For once, the great Sherlock Holmes has no clue what to do. His brain has short-circuited.

The problem is not, in fact, that he doesn't know how to dance. That is the least of his worries; being from the overly posh and influential family that the Holmes were, his parents made sure that all traditional dances and social cues amongst the elite were ingrained into Sherlock before the age of seven. The classical waltz was one of many subjects covered in basic education. Like those very unhelpful courses on polite mannerisms, he took great pleasure in not utilizing said skill sets, but they were always there nonetheless. No, what was far more troubling was the way Joan was currently draped around him, looking up at him with eyes both expectant and filled with  _more_ (and they'd been filled with a little  _more_  rather frequently, as of late, and it kept him up far too much), in an elegant floor-length gown with ringlets in her hair, exceptionally dark lashes, and crimson lipstick. He didn't know what to  _do_ in cases like this. He hadn't had much romantic experience with a woman he actually enjoyed the company of, let alone loved.

(He would say 'liked'. Let alone 'liked'. But that wasn't quite true, was it? He had loved Joan from the very start for her quick mind, her drive, her genuine interest and willingness to understand. True, he had loved her as a friend at the time, but you don't simply develop feelings for someone you know better than yourself, someone you would go insane without, someone you would  _die_  for and label it something as juvenile as a crush. There's a lot of difference between being smitten with a girl and having a drive to protect them from all the evils of the world, to never let them go, and that difference is called the fallout zone.

You survive the transition or you don't. Simple as that.

And from the way Joan had transcended the phase of 'smitten' altogether, leaping entirely towards the one extreme, it was evident that whatever he was feeling had prevailed. That right there was love, and though he had only noticed it very recently, that love had always existed, albeit in different forms. In short, he was doomed for a long, long while and nothing could stop it now, no matter the idiocy of that plan.)

As the next waltz started up, though (and waltzes, despite varying in type and speed, had composed nearly the entire soundtrack of the event, so this was hardly a surprise), he found himself tightening his grip on the green fabric around her waist and guiding her into the motions, his body acting of its own accord as his mind melted through to the floor. She hummed absentmindedly, starting to smile again out of something other than her fond exasperation, and came a little closer.

"You never told me you could dance," she laughs, having what was obviously the best time she'd had all night. "If I'd known, I would have dragged you over here hours ago." He nods, grinning back unwittingly, and tries to think of something witty that his usual intelligent self would say.

"Yes," is what he comes up with, and that is quite the heavy commentary on the state of his cognitive faculties at the present. Suddenly he's wondering just how exactly they'd gotten to a point where Joan was so near - inches of distance lay between them, but they seemed so easy to span for some absurd reason. He has an urge, one he never imagined he'd come to possess, that tells his brain that perhaps Sherlock doesn't want to leave yet. Maybe they could stretch this moment just a few minutes longer.

Soon enough the next song is starting, and his fellow detective looks slightly put out about the fact that the previous number came to an end. As she unfolds her hands from their interlaced position behind he neck, he catches her.

"You did say it was a shame that we didn't dance earlier, Joan," he says, the words escaping his mouth before he can properly reflect. "I don't see the harm in staying for a little bit more." And then she's grinning again, slowly but surely letting the expression creep up onto her lips, and she slots her fingers back into place.

"Alright, then. I'll just worry about being dead on my feet later, then," she decides out loud, and soon enough the detective is silently basking in the fact that she's there at all.

One song rolls into two, which rolls into three, and it's almost an hour later when they finally decide to head out. Joan Watson has tucked her head onto his chest, tired but content, and he's trying not to let everyone else see just how soft his eyes have gone or how careful he's been in trying to keep her upright.

He has no idea if it's working or not, and by the strange and almost questioning glances they've been shot recently he's probably been failing. Surprisingly, that fails to bother him. Not at all.

Eventually he loads up a very sleep deprived Joan into her vehicle and drives them home, bidding goodbye to their coworkers on the way out. When they reach the Brownstone, she lazily heads into her room and emerges minutes later sans dress and makeup, clad in her usual shorts and mildly oversized t shirt. Naturally, Sherlock doesn't mind a bit. She's never had to try around him, anyhow.

Joan hugs him in her unfortunate state of exhaustion, squeezing him gently.

"Tonight was good," she mumbles into the back of his suit jacket. "You made it good. You should know." He carefully removes her arms and leads her back to her room and waiting bed. She lays inside the covers, burrowing her face in without hesitation.

He was going to leave, honestly. He had just loosened his tie, just removed his shoes and kicked them into the hall. And then came her voice again.

"I wish I had someone," she mutters next, yawning and staring at the ceiling. The champagne and deprivation were clearly taking their toll. "Someone to fall into, you know? Tonight made me remember that." Her brow furrowed in thought. "You would work, I think. But you wouldn't want me." It's rather sad, actually, that she couldn't be farther from the truth.

"Who says?" he responds quietly, and in that moment he does something truly stupid. He takes off his idiotic jacket and lays down next to her, close enough to touch. She sets her head on his shoulder and falls asleep talking about every thought in her brain, some comments less than intelligible. Her digits lace with his, her sheets get tangled in his legs, and eventually he drifts along with her, wondering in his dreams how on earth he was allowed to do this.

* * *

When they wake up the next day, it's so strangely reminiscent of his night vision months ago (he still remembers, quite vividly, the swirls he pressed into her arms, all the deep blues and rich violets and bright scarlets blurring together) he almost thinks he's still asleep. And then, of course, he remembers.

Suddenly he feels a very pressing need to apologize.

"Joan, I -"

"If I ask you something, will you promise not to hold it over me?" she asks quietly, glancing down at their intertwined hands, laid over his chest.

He nods, obviously, because he doesn't think he's even capable of holding Watson to anything. She's too good for that and he's not, in fact, the petulant child he behaves like on occasion.

"Could we stay like this? Just a little longer?" He blinks, because even after years and years of partnership his comrade can still find ways to surprise him. She, oblivious to that thought, continues, biting her lip slightly. "It's just . . . it's nice. It's been a while since I've had  _nice_ , you know?" She truly has no idea what he'd give to have  _nice_  forever.

"Of course, Joan," he tells her with far too much feeling, the detective wrapping an arm around her. His partner hums, settling back into the feeling, and without meaning to she drifts unconscious again, looking much too comfortable, much too  _right_. It's almost too much for him to handle.

This was a terrible idea. Developing feelings for his best friend in the first place was a  _terrible_  idea.

The genius tries not to think about this moment in the evenings that follow, but it replays on loop for nights and nights and nights. It was bad enough, realizing that he was falling in love with her. Now every single time he thinks he's hit rock bottom, he'll remember  _that_ , and it will remind him that, impossibly, he's still got more space to tumble through.

* * *

Sometimes, when she can't sleep, she'll wordlessly get up and lay next to him until she does. He has assured her that it was alright; wasn't that what best friends did? Take care of eachother?

But he wants to be something more than best friends. Something better.

And maybe, apart from the fact that he has trouble sleeping as well, one of the reasons she seeks him out is because she wants that, too.

Sherlock hopes, and perhaps he would pray if he were more religious, that that is the case, because things have gotten decidedly worse since she began sleeping at his side. He has to emerge from his visions with one Joan Watson beside him, warm and concrete and  _real_ , and it only fuels his imagination. It gives him a little bit too much faith.

His partner never complains, though. She stretches and yawns and leans far too heavily onto his collarbone, but she never once suggests that what they are doing should come to a close. She rather enjoys being held, actually; it reminds her that she's not alone, that she's valued. Though she's certainly not insecure, Joan could stand to hear that more often.

So he continues waking up to her at his side, limbs tangled in limbs, and even Sherlock Holmes cannot quite convince himself that it's nothing.

* * *

"Do you ever think about it?" Joan questions as she looks at the victims of New York's latest tragedy reuniting again. Apparently a human trafficking operation had just been put to rest and the families had come out to see their missing persons. There were tearful laughs, lengthy hugs, and warm embraces across the way, and as the police took their final remarks the two consulting detectives remained on the sidelines, watching the affair.

"Having a family?" he counters, brow furrowed. It's the only thing that makes sense, really. "All the time. But I'm not cut out for it." She cocked her head in surprise.

"How so?"

"Watson, I snap constantly. I'm impatient and ornery at the best of times and am easily irritated. My hobbies are strange, I'm brutally honest, and my last relationship ended in flames. A child would come to hate me if I were their father, and that's supposing my wife would stick around. All I know about blood relations is what I've managed to gather from my insipid brother and challenging parents, and I hardly have a good relationship with either of them." The genius huffs, setting back his shoulders. "I'm a micro-chasm of case studies, Joan. I would be terrible at it."

"Being a member of a family?" she replies, shaking her head. "I beg to differ."

He raises a brow. "Really?"

"Sherlock, you save lives every day. You're unwaveringly devoted to your job and to those closest to you. You saved my life so many times I know I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for you. And yes, you're not  _normal_ , but nobody asked you to be. I happen to like your fascination with mysteries and I don't mind that you enjoy lock-picking, codebreaking, and all the other eccentric habits you've picked up. And believe it or not, you will be a good husband. You can cook, you tolerate grocery shopping, you visit my mom and come volunteer with me, and as I've learned recently, you can dance. Very, very well." She almost appears sad, or maybe bittersweet. "Any girl would be lucky to have you, and I have no doubt you'll be able to love and support her just fine." The genius looks at her,  _really looks_  at her, and thinks for the thousandth time that she's incredible. She always knows just what to say, even when she's seconds from caving. So he will do his best to reply in kind.

"I'm still not going to go looking for someone, Joan," he says, keeping his eyes on his partner the entire time, gauging her reaction.

"Why not? You deserve it, even if you don't think you do." At that moment, he takes her hand, something he rarely does with anyone.

"You're already my family." She's so genuinely touched she's seconds away from crying, he can tell. So instead of tearing up, she presses her face into his shirt and hugs him tightly, far, far longer than necessary. This sort of show of affection, so similar to the ones the reunited are participating in, doesn't annoy him at all when it's Joan, and so he allows it.

"You're mine, too," she whispers, almost reflexively, and as they head home she smiles softly.

That night, he dreams of her, talking in furious tones about their newest case, pacing around the kitchen with a huff. He's listening, though is frankly more focused on not burning dinner, and when he plates everything minutes later (it's stir fry, something he rarely makes; perhaps he could whip something up for real next week) he's mildly shocked to notice that there are, in fact, three dishes. Joan, sighing after her tirade, places everything on the table and settles into her chair across from him.

Had there always been another seat, next to theirs?

"Dinner!" she calls upstairs, and before he could fully register what was happening, a muffled voice screamed something back, probably to the effect of 'I know  _now_ '. There are mild thumps on the wooden stairs, quick and erratic, and before he gets to see person number three he wakes up in a haze, Joan tucked neatly into her half of the bed (and really, there shouldn't be a matter of sides, but there are, which should probably be cause for alarm but isn't, and he wishes to keep it that way for as long as she'll let him). That was peculiar, even by his standards, and he scrubs a hand over his face, careful not to wake his companion, and wracks his brain trying to figure out what had just happened.

(He's a real idiot, for a genius.

Some things you should just know, but he  _did_  say he wasn't a family man. Sherlock Holmes is many things, just introspective is rarely one of them.

And anyhow, a father is something he's never been at all. How was he supposed to know what parenthood looks like?)

He pieces together exactly who that person was supposed to be and cannot stop thinking about them for the rest of the day and for the evenings following. Sherlock wonders if he'll ever get lucky enough to meet them in reality.

* * *

One night, he asks her to stargaze with him.

Admittedly, it was probably more than a little romantic in connotation. They were together on the roof, chairs side by side, gazing up at ebony space in the underbelly of night. Supposedly a small meteor shower was supposed to occur, right over their small patch of sky, and Sherlock had thought that perhaps some company would be nice. Joan might enjoy it, too. But seeing her, hair loose, cocoa in hand, wrapped up in a blanket and illuminated in nothing but lantern light, he realizes that he may have made a mistake. His comrade isn't doing anything out of the ordinary, really; she's just sitting there, watching the inky night, and he can't stop  _staring_. Strangely enough, he hadn't realized that spending time with Joan meant spending time with Joan whilst doing something that might me misconstrued as a date.

For a man with an IQ as high as his, he's really not very bright. He should have known that enjoying a meteor shower would be impossible when he was so focused on other things, such as constant internal panic.

When it began, he was quiet as the grave, alternating between looking at her and looking at the natural satellites condescending across the skyline. It was amazing, something he was truly fascinated by, but he just couldn't  _stop_.

"It's beautiful," she tells him, awestruck. He cannot be held accountable for what he does next.

"It is," he responds, not sparing the phenomena even the slightest glance. She turned in agreement and then saw that he was looking at her, dead on.

"Are you . . ." the woman starts, then trails off, not knowing quite what to say. "Why aren't you watching?"

"I'm watching you. It's rather infuriating, actually." Her brow furrowed.

"What, am I doing something?"

"You're being yourself, Joan. It's enough to make anybody stop and stare," he mutters grimly, and like a prepubescent boy his ears start to tinge red. He thought he'd suppressed those sorts of urges by now, sadly enough.

"Oh," his partner remarks, glancing down at her pajamas, swathed in gentle yellow light. She's still trying to process what that could possibly mean. "Sherlock?"

"Yes?"

"Can you answer some questions for me? Honestly?" Joan tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, turning her entire body to face him, and he knows that this has to be it. He's gotten away with quite a lot, but Holmes aren't meant to be so lucky. They don't get happiness, they don't find love. And maybe he thought, just for a second, that he wasn't so alone in that place, that maybe she was going to be different, but here and now is where it all comes crumbling down.

Like a man braced for execution, he nods with a grimace.

 _Here is the guillotine_.

"So, recently, I know things have changed. I know I've been acting differently, and I know that we've been more . . ." She clears her throat. "Anyways. I don't want to bother you with it, but did you mean it? When you say things like that?"

"Like what?" he replies miserably, wanting to shrink into himself.

"That I'm beautiful, for one."

That was . . . not what he thought she'd say.

Not at all.

"Of course. You are, Watson. It's a fact," the detective retorts, raising a brow. "I never give compliments I don't mean."

"And when we were dancing. Why did you humor me?"

"You wanted to dance. So we did. It made you happy." She sighs, taking a sudden interest in her toes, her legs drawn up to her chest.

"And now we sleep together."

"You needed me," he shruggs, and his eyes traced the meteors arching above her head, almost like a crown of stardust. Magical. "You're my partner, Joan. I'll always be there when you need me." At this point, his fellow consulting detective seemed ready to pull out her hair.

"This is the one area of life where I can't read you and it's infuriating," she groans, possibly gearing up to murder him on the roof. He rather hoped she wouldn't; the blood would never wash out. "I guess I'm asking what all that  _means_  to you."

"What it means?"

"Yes, and if it means the same thing to you that it does to me," the woman huffs, crossing her arms. "Because I thought it was more than clear what I thought about you but I have no clue what you make of us, and it's driving me crazy. You say things like  _that_  and then I'm confused all over again."

She can't mean that the way he thinks she means that.

There's no way he's that delusional.

It's not supposed to be that easy.

"What do you think about me, Joan?" he questions eventually, and he truly despises how hopeful that sentence was. His partner borders on the incredulous.

"You're making me say it?" She pinches the bridge of her nose with an expression that spells out her future regrets. "These past few months, I can't stand to be alone. No, not alone as in 'I'm in a sea of people and I feel on my own', but as in whenever you're not there it feels wrong. Almost like a part of me isn't there, either. And yes, that's strange, but I chalked it up to overexposure and closeness and called it good. But I physically can't run cases without running through my thoughts with you, without forcing you to pick my brain, and when I can't reach you it drives me up a wall. When I don't see you each day I'm off-center, and it's weird to not eat meals with you or even go  _shopping_  without you, which is stupid. It shouldn't be a problem but it  _is_  and I don't want to do things like errands without your company. I never sleep better than when I'm lying next to you and you know me better than anybody else. You  _understand_  me without words and I can't imagine losing that. If I lost you period I think I'd be a shell." She paused. "It's not because I miss Andrew or because I need affection. Suddenly I just realized that I wanted my partner to be more than my partner, and that since we'd gotten closer maybe . . . I don't know. Maybe something more wasn't so far, you know?"

He tries to comprehend the significance of what she just said, but it seems so overwhelmingly good that he doesn't know where to start.

She has no idea, does she?

And apparently he had no clue, either.

"You're not wrong," the man informs, more serious than he's been in his entire life. Her eyes narrow.

"What do you -"

She never gets to finish that thought as he rather effectively cuts off her next incoming rant. He's kissing her and trying his very damnedest not to smile because he's been waiting for one Joan Watson far, far too long to botch this up now. She's surprised, as is to be expected, but she warms within instants, molding her mouth to fit his. Hands curve around necks, fingers settle on hips, and his mind is far, far away, up above the clouds, flitting across the skyline like the meteors around them. He tugged her closer and closer still, wanting  _more_ , wanting everything, until the space between them was nonexistent and his insides were dripping with molten gold.

This was coming home. This was being fully and truly  _alive_ , fully and truly devoted to another person. How on earth had he ever survived without Watson?

Eventually the pull apart, her head resting on his shoulder as they both regain their breath, and watch the dying light of the meteors, like an explosion of stars on the widening horizon. There's a lot they should probably be discussing, a lot of concerns they should probably be voicing, but Sherlock cannot for the life of him remember them now.

"So what would you say if I asked you out on a date tomorrow night?" he finally ends up mumbling into her hair. He can  _feel_  the hum rising through her throat, warming to the idea.

"I've got nothing planned."

"Good."

When he falls asleep, meteors line the sky, illuminating her face, and as he kisses her again, he's comforted by one vital fact: all of it is real.

* * *

The evening afterwards is nothing too eventful. They go to a moderately nice restaurant, converse pleasantly the entire time, and eventually go on a long walk through different parts of the city. He mentions that a building on the corner is probably part of a smuggling operation based on the abundance of white vans and coffee grounds strewn about the floor, and she agrees and tells him they'll bring it up with Gregson in the morning. He makes an inordinately fancy dessert in the Brownstone for no reason other than he felt like it, and she sips from a recently-discovered bottle of brandy and talks about every thought on her mind. Typically people don't kiss excessively on the first date, but they didn't quite mind. He embraces her anyways, lips on lips, and all else falls away whenever it happens.

It's comfortable. It's effortless. It's something that probably should have happened a long time ago.

Eventually, they do make their way to bed and out of newly acquired habit they fall in together, two halves of a whole. She passes out first, a smile on her face, and he traces swirls across her arm, recreating galaxies.

His dreams have never been better.

* * *

A strange missive comes in the mail a week later. Signed from a familiar script, it reads:

_Took you long enough. I'm happy, though!_

Even Kitty knew before them.

And he calls himself a detective.

* * *

Her mother finds out just by looking at both of them. Watson's parent smiles mischievously and begins to chuckle.

"Finally figured some things out, right?" she grins, patting both their hands. "Good for you. I'm proud, Joan."

"Thanks," the female detective replies, "I'm pretty happy, too." They resume their lunches without another word on the matter. There's really nothing more to say.

* * *

Joan Watson tells him she loves him after six weeks and two days of being in a relationship. He tells her the same when she wakes up the next day.

He would say it's all he ever dreamed of, but he's not too fond of the sentiment and the inflection is present nonetheless.

Sherlock Holmes is going to spend the rest of his life following his partner around. Honestly, he can't wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was the last chapter. I will probably post an epilogue, it will just be after I finish up some other stuff, so don't hold your breath.
> 
> Anyways, here's the start of something happy for them; it was interesting to write from a conventional point and maybe the ending was slightly rushed, but this was already so long and if I was going to add another followup part to the end of this then it didn't really matter. The end is hardly ever the true end, after all.
> 
> Also, thanks to the people who have left reviews and kudos on this. It really encourages you when someone writes something nice about you work. It's much appreciated! 
> 
> Have a great day and I hope you enjoyed this. Good luck!


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